UN General Assembly
1987

China has not only actively put forward its views and proposals on disarmament, but has also taken a series of concrete actions towards disarmament. On the very first day when China came into possession of nuclear weapons, in 1964, we declared unilaterally that at no time and under no circumstances would China be the first to use nuclear weapons. We have also undertaken not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon States or nuclear-free zones. We neither advocate nor go in for nuclear proliferation; we do not help other countries develop nuclear weapons. China respects and supports the countries and regions concerned in their endeavour to establish nuclear-free zones or zones of peace on the basis of voluntary agreement to be reached through consultation among themselves. We have signed the additional protocols of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. Furthermore, in recent years we have stopped atmospheric nuclear testing, reduced the size of our armed forces by one million and cut down our military expenditures. We have also shifted some military industrial facilities to civilian production and put some military installations to civilian use or dual use.