U.S. rejects Chinese no-first-use nuke plan

NEWS AND ANALYSIS:

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A Chinese proposal submitted to the United Nations last month calling on all nations to adopt Beijing’s questionable “no first use” nuclear weapons policy is a nonstarter for the United States.

A State Department official told Inside the Ring that the no-first-use policy would be unacceptable given China’s massive nuclear weapons buildup and its refusal to join U.S. arms talks.

“The PRC’s rapid and opaque buildup of a more flexible nuclear arsenal calls into question the objectives behind its no-first-use proposal,” the official said, speaking on background and using the abbreviation for People’s Republic of China. “[China’s] refusal to engage in meaningful bilateral or multilateral discussions on arms control and risk reduction, including on questions about the PRC’s stated no-first-use policy, reinforces these concerns.”

The proposal was introduced in a U.N. preparatory meeting in Geneva from July 22 to Aug. 2 in advance of a major 2026 review conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

In a working paper by the Chinese government, President Xi Jinping describes nuclear arms as a “sword of Damocles” threatening humanity. All nuclear weapons should be “completely banned” in pursuit of a nuclear-free world, he said.

China asserts in the paper that declaring not to be the first to use nuclear arms in a conflict is a way to implement Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That article calls on all signatories to “negotiate in good faith” for nuclear disarmament, something China has so far refused to do.

The State Department official said American diplomats in Geneva posed questions to Chinese officials about entering arms talks but received no response.

China’s proposal, “which followed its suspension of bilateral consultations on arms control and risk reduction, appears likely to be an attempt to deflect responsibility for its unwillingness to engage in substantive discussions,” the official said.

The Chinese proposal calls on the five leading nuclear weapons states — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — to sign a treaty on no-first-use of nuclear weapons. No-first-use is what arms control officials call a declaratory policy intended to signal nuclear deterrence goals.

Current U.S. declaratory policy, dating back to 2009, uses calculated ambiguity on how nuclear arms would be used in deterring an array of threats, both to the United States and allies in Europe and Asia covered by U.S. “extended” deterrence.

Successive presidential administrations have rejected both no-first-use and another policy once favored by President Biden called “sole purpose,” which holds that the only justified use of nuclear weapons is to deter a nuclear attack on the U.S. and its allies.

Marshall Billingslea, presidential envoy for arms control in the Trump administration, said no-first-use would be bad policy for the U.S., citing concerns it would increase — not decrease — the risk of war by offering an incentive for non-nuclear aggression.

“We have always maintained ambiguity about what might prompt a U.S. nuclear response,” he said in an email. “In fact, there are scenarios where we might be the first to use these weapons, and Communist China needs to understand that.”

The Pentagon’s most recent annual report on the Chinese military also questioned the no-first-use policy amid a massive nuclear forces buildup of missiles, bombers and submarines by Beijing.

China’s nuclear strategy, contrary to no-first-use, likely includes plans for nuclear strikes in response to non-nuclear attacks that threaten nuclear forces or command and control systems, or after an attack that equals the strategic effects of a nuclear strike, the report said.

China would also resort to nuclear weapons if a conventional military defeat in Taiwan gravely threatened the Chinese Communist Party’s regime survival, the report said.

China’s rapid buildup of nuclear forces in the more than a decade since Mr. Xi came to power has been described an unprecedented “break out.” The Pentagon estimates China’s warhead stockpile, once limited to around 250 warheads, will reach 1,500 by 2035 deployed on missiles, submarines and bombers.

U.S. rejects China proliferation concerns with Aussie sub deal 

Beijing has turned to the United Nations in a bid to scuttle a centerpiece of the Biden administration’s effort to bolster regional security in Asia against growing Chinese military threats.

At a preparatory meeting in Geneva related to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Chinese officials submitted a working paper calling the U.S.-Australian-British program known as AUKUS to build nuclear-powered submarines for the Australian navy “a serious nuclear proliferation risk.”

The State Department denied the claim.

“The AUKUS partnership on naval nuclear propulsion is consistent with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),” a State Department official told Inside the Ring, noting the United States remains fully committed to the treaty and continues to comply with all its obligations.

AUKUS is a security partnership focused on sustaining peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, the official said.

“Through AUKUS, we will support Australia’s acquisition of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines — a proven and safe technology,” the official said in a statement. “This partnership is possible because of Australia’s longstanding and demonstrated commitment to nuclear nonproliferation.”

Australia has stated it will not seek nuclear weapons and remains committed to its international nonproliferation obligations.

Efforts by China to limit U.S. nuclear policy and the submarine program with Australia at the U.N. meeting are an example of what American officials have said are efforts to weaken the United States within international organizations.

“The place that really the Chinese are taking it to us is in international organizations,” Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently. “We have to be able to contest there.”

Mr. Campbell was lamenting the slow pace of Senate confirmations of nominees for ambassadorial posts in international organizations, embassies and consulates.

Mystery surrounds Hamas leader’s assassination

As the Middle East braces for a possible war between Israel and Iran, mystery surrounds the spectacular Israeli intelligence operation to assassinate the political leader of Hamas.

The New York Times, quoting Iranian officials, reported last week that Ismail Haniyeh, the senior Hamas leader, was killed by an explosive device smuggled into the Tehran guesthouse months before it blew up in the room where he was staying.

Photos of the high-rise building where the assassination took place were released by Iran. They showed a shroud covering a portion of the building where the explosion took place.

Iran’s government said the killing was the result of an unspecified “severe explosion” outside the guesthouse where Haniyeh was staying. The publication Pasdaran reported the Hamas leader was blown up by “a short-range projectile carrying about 7 kilograms of explosive materials and launched from outside the guest’s residence.”

Other reports said the attack was the result of an air-launched missile strike from an Israeli F-35.

Another account published Monday by The Jewish Chronicle, a British newspaper, reported Haniyeh was killed by a bomb placed under his bed by two Iranians recruited by Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service. The agents worked within the Ansar al-Mahdi security unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the unit in charge of securing the building and its guests.

That report stated that the two guards behind the bombing were seen on video the day of the assassination entering the bedroom.

None of the four versions of the operation have been confirmed.

Intelligence analysts, however, say those who conduct such high-risk operations likely put out deceptive or misleading cover stories as part of the operation to protect the sources and methods that could be used again in the future.

Former National Security Agency counterintelligence official John Schindler said the Israeli hit on Haniyeh was a “spectacular” operation.

Mossad has conducted assassinations in the past in Iran, notably using hit men on motorcycles to kill several Iranian nuclear scientists. But none of those hits were on the level of the senior Hamas leader.

“What stands out is that Israel possesses not just effective long-range strike capabilities across the Middle East, but detailed real-time intelligence too,” Mr. Schindler wrote on his “Top Secret Umbra” blog. “It required a great deal of actionable and timely intelligence to know exactly where Haniyeh was, and when. Attacks by the [Israeli military] in Gaza or Lebanon are one thing, while a strike on an IRGC compound in Tehran is entirely another in both operational and intelligence terms.”

Mr. Schindler believes the accounts fed to Western journalists on the assassination will induce record-breaking levels of security paranoia within Iran over Israeli spy penetrations.

“If we’re lucky, the Iranians and their terrorist pets will go overboard with their aggressive mole hunt,” he said.

The former counterspy said that a foreign counterintelligence operation fueled suspicions of spy penetration among terrorists in the Abu Nidal Organization.

The operation in the 1980s induced terror leader Abu Nidal to kill 600 of his confederates in a search for internal traitors. “Amateurs kill terrorists; professionals induce the terrorists to kill each other,” Mr. Schindler said.

• Contact Bill Gertz on X @BillGertz.