China’s Nuclear Policy

Rong Yu
Ph.D. Candidate, Institute of Strategic Studies
School of Public Policy and Management
Tsinghua University

Prepared for Workshop on“Prospects for East Asian Nuclear Disarmament”
Hiroshima Peace Institute
Hiroshima, Japan
March 11-12, 2004

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China has stuck to a purely defensive nuclear policy since the very first day
when it exploded its first nuclear weapon, which falls into the category of minimum
deterrence policy. To the Chinese government, the nuclear policy has always beenboth part of the foreign policy and part of defense policy. Different and sometimes
incompatible missions are assigned to its nuclear policy, which, coupled with thedevelopment of U.S. NMD system, pose a challenge to China’s nuclear policy. This
paper intends to explore the dilemmas facing China’s nuclear policy, nuclear
modernization as a solution to the dilemma facing it, the effects of DPRK going
nuclear, as well as a Northeast Asia Nuclear Reduction Initiative from China’s
perspective.

China’s Nuclear Policy
China has come into possession of nuclear weapons for nearly four decades by
now. During these years, China has issued statements over China’s nuclear policy at
various occasions. However, since 1998 when China began the practice of publishinga whitepaper on China’s national defense every two years, the whitepapers havebecome the most authoritative source of statements on China’s defense policy. In thehitherto published three whitepapers, the last two has given a special reference to its
nuclear policy in the chapter regarding China’s defense policy. The most recent
summary of China’s current nuclear weapons policy, therefore, is to be found in
China’s National Defense in 2002, which is worth quoting at length:“Prospects for East Asian Nuclear Disarmament”

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3“China consistently upholds the policy of no first use of nuclear weapons, andadopts an extremely restrained attitude toward the development of nuclear weapons.
China has never participated in any nuclear arms race and never deployed weapons
abroad. China’s limited nuclear counterattack is entirely for deterrence against
possible nuclear attacks by other countries.”1
In the same White Paper, there is a section devoted to the nuclear disarmament,
which reiterated China’s commitment to complete prohibition and thoroughdestruction of nuclear weapons.2
Key Elements in China’s Nuclear Policy
For all those who are familiar with China’s nuclear policy, these are the policies
that China has consistently endorsed and adhered to. It seems that several key
elements can be distinguished about China’s nuclear policy:
First and foremost, it is defensive in nature. As a deterrent against nuclear war,
China’s nuclear weapons are a key part of China’s active defense strategy. Indeed,
Chinese government and officials has been emphasizing this key feature of China’s
nuclear policy. For example, on July 15, 1997, Lt. General Li Jijun, Vice President of
the PLA's Academy of Military Science, told his audience in the U. S. Army War
College: "China's nuclear strategy is purely defensive in nature. The decision todevelop nuclear weapons was a choice China had to make in the face of real nuclear
threats. A small arsenal is retained only for the purpose of self-defense. ...China's

1

Information Office of the Sate council of the People’s Republic of China, December 2002, China’s National
Defense in 2002, P14
2
Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, December 2002, China’s National
Defense in 2002, p79-80“Prospects for East Asian Nuclear Disarmament”

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4strategy is completely defensive, focused only on deterring the possibility of nuclear
blackmail being used against China by other nuclear powers." 3
Often cited as the most telling features of China’s defensive nuclear policy is the
adoption of NFU, or non-first-use policy. Among all the nuclear powers, China is the
only one to have made the promise to do so on the first day when it came intopossession of nuclear weapons and have stuck to its promise faithfully till this day. In
fact, as the 2002 white paper claimed earlier on the same page about its nuclear policy,
China adopts a military strategy of active defense, which implies “a principle
featuring defensive operations, self-defense and attack only after being attacked.” 4As an important integral part of China’s military strategy, China’s nuclear policy has
been aimed at coercing the outbreak of nuclear war. Indeed, it had been argued thatdifferent roles attached to nuclear weapons determine the division between defensive
and aggressive nuclear policies. Even when all nuclear powers are following a nuclear
deterrence principle, still, the NFU or FU feature distinguishes between the aggressive
nuclear deterrence and defensive nuclear deterrence.
Second, its purpose is to defend against the nuclear deterrence from othercountries, or as some scholars have put it: China’s nuclear policy is anti-nuclear
deterrence. China has kept its nuclear forces as a counterforce to nuclear deterrence
from other countries. While other nuclear powers have reserved the right to attack3“Traditional Military Thinking and the Defensive Strategy of China,” An Address at the US Army War College,
Letort Paper No. 1, 29 August 1997, p. 7.
4
Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, December 2002, China’s National
Defense in 2002, p13“Prospects for East Asian Nuclear Disarmament”

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first as a credible deterrent, China has promised NFU. In addition, China has also
pledged not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons to non-nuclear states at all.
Third, the size of China’s nuclear force will be limited. Although China has inrecent years attached much importance to the modernization of its armed forces,
including its nuclear forces, China continues to exercise "utmost restraint on thedevelopment of nuclear weapons and its nuclear arsenal is kept at the lowest level
necessary for self-defense only."5As has been analyzed by Li Bin(2001), 6China’s current nuclear policy is thethird stage of its nuclear development. In the first stage from 1964 until 1980, when
China acquired the capability of launching Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles(ICBMs), it had only a symbolic or existential nuclear deterrence.7 In the second
stage, the Chinese nuclear deterrence is based on the quantitative ambiguity of its
nuclear force. Today, Chinese nuclear development is going to enter a third stage, inwhich China will have credible and visible minimum nuclear deterrence. Although
there are talks of China’s pursuit of a limited deterrence strategy,8 Iain Johnston’sargument (1996) 9that evidences show China is still far away from limited deterrence
seems to be still valid. Therefore, it would be rash to assume a shift to a limited

5

Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, December 2002, China’s National
Defense in 2002, p80
6Li Bin, “The Impact of U.S. NMD on Chinese Nuclear Modernization”, http://www.pugwash.org/
7
Xie Guang eds., Contemporary Chinese Science and Technology for National Defense, Contemporary China
Publishing House, 1972, Beijing, pp.327-338.
8 Bates Gill, James Mulvenon, Mark Stokes. “The Chinese Second Artillery Corps: Transition to Credible
Deterrence, ” in The People’s Liberation Army as an Organization: Reference Volume v1.0.” Ed: James C.
Mulvenon, Andrew N.D. Yang. 2001. Page 516.]
9
Alastair Iain Johnston, "China's New 'Old Thinking': The Concept of Limited Deterrence," International Security,
Vol. 20, No. 3 (Winter 1995-96), pp. 5-42
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nuclear deterrence policy. In this paper, I will discuss China’s nuclear policy options
within the context of minimum deterrence.

Conflicting Demands Facing China’s nuclear policy
In various occasions, Chinese leaders have stated China’s task in the newmillennium to be: to countinue to propel the modernization drive, to achieve national
reunification, and to safeguard world peace and promote common development.
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Although all three tasks require the coordination of China’s defense policy andforeign policy, nuclear policy, due to the unique strategic nature of the nuclear
weapons, has a special role to play. Nuclear policy is both part of defense policy andpart of foreign policy. In China, as the two dimensions of policies pose different
requirements, its nuclear policy will have to fulfill double missions, which are notnecessarily completely compatible.
Foreign Policy Mission
As China’s economy grows, so does its self-confidence. No longer feel isolatedor threaten by direct military assault, China is increasingly identifying itself as part ofthe mainstream international community and becoming more active in various
international affairs. These efforts, however, have caused uneasiness among some ofits neighbors and stakeholders in the region, who fear that a rising China will upset
the current strategic structure, some of which even talked about possibilities of a
China “hegemony”. In view of these so-called “China threat” theories, Chinese
10

Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, December 2002, China’s National
Defense in 2002, p1“Prospects for East Asian Nuclear Disarmament”

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leaders have decided to pursuit a “peaceful rise” 11, which means it will tilt its foreign
policy more to the demonstration of its peaceful bid and non-hegemony nature.
Foreign policy efforts devoted to this purpose include sharing China’s economic
opportunities with its neighbors and enhanced efforts in promoting regional
cooperation and international regime.
In view of these missions, China’s nuclear policy has come to be increasingly
subject to international norms. In terms of nuclear arms control and disarmament, in
addition to its unconditional no-first use policy, China has also committed itself to aseries of international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation initiatives. As Iain
Johnston (2003) has argued12, these efforts were often at the cost of China’s own
security or economic interests. For example, in signing the CTBT, China had been
willing to allow the freezing of the nuclear asymmetry between China and othernuclear powers to the disadvantage of China. Recent reports on China’s intention tojoin the MCTR and NSG can also be seen as its efforts to convince the international
community of its identification with the mainstream value. Evidently, to ensure apeaceful rise, which would entail reducing perceived threats to other powers, China is
willing to put a check on its nuclear development and contribute more to the nuclear
abolition cause.

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12

Lu Hong and He Hongze: Wen Jiabao’s Speech at Harvard University,” Renmin Ribao, December 11, 2003, p.3.
Alastair Iain Johnston, “Is China a Status Quo Power?”, in International Security, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Spring2003), pp. 5–56
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Taiwan Issue – Defense Imperative
In a certain sense, China’s security environment is at its best since 1840. With nodanger of direct military threat to its territory nor imminent risk of military clash with
its neighbors, China’s only major security concern is Taiwan issue. The separation of
Taiwan from Mainland China, an emotional issue for the Chinese, is the relic ofChina’s bloody civil war. It constantly reminds China of its miserable history of thelast century, which hurt the nation’s pride. As mentioned earlier, Taiwan’s
reunification with Mainland China is the one of the major tasks Chinese leaders
assigned to themselves. China has consistently urged for a peaceful reunification,
however, with the rising of separatist sentiments among Taiwanese, the possibility ofunification by force is increasing, which calls for the increased military efforts tosecure the viability of a military option.
Due to the special relations between Taiwan and U.S., a military solution to
Taiwan issue is certain to invoke the possibility of a confrontation between U.S. andChina.13 In this regard, China’s nuclear forces become a prominent figure, not as ameans to fight and win a nuclear war, but rather as a means to prevent the U.S. frominvolving itself into the war. The success of failure of this goal, however, will dependon the perceived credibility of the nuclear deterrence.
The effect of BMD
Dated back to a few years ago, China had been quite confident of the credibilityof its nuclear deterrent. As Li Bin (2001) pointed out, the U.S. can never be sure of13

Li Bin, “The Impact of U.S. NMD on Chinese Nuclear Modernization”, http://www.pugwash.org/“Prospects for East Asian Nuclear Disarmament”

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9being able to eliminate every single piece of China’s nuclear weapons in a preemptive
attack, therefore, it is speculated that U.S. dare not to risk a nuclear exchange with
China for fear of a nuclear retaliation. China’s nuclear forces, small in size andunsophisticated in nature as it might be in comparison with the U.S., was quite enoughto sober its adversary up in a potential conflict.
In recent years, when the U.S. abandoned the ABM Treaty and started to develop
and deploy its NMD, however, things are becoming quite different for China. With thelimited size of China’s current long range nuclear force, only a few Chinese ICBMs
would survive a first U.S. strike and retain a retaliatory capability. Therefore, even avery limited NMD system with very few interceptors would pose a serious threat to
the Chinese retaliatory capability. According to the estimations of a prominent
Chinese defense analyst14, China will need to increase its nuclear arsenal several foldor significantly modernize its nuclear arsenal before it can retain its nuclear deterrence.
Or, another choice will be to abandon or at least modify its no-first-use policy. For, if
China claims it will consider first use of nuclear weapons in very critical situations, orthat when it follows a launch-on-warning policy, the U.S. will again face theuncertainty of a defense against Chinese nuclear attack.
These options, however, all run contrary to China’s intention to reduce relianceon nuclear weapons. In sum, on one hand, China’s commitment to a peaceful rise has
prompted China to limit its nuclear weapons as much as possible; on the other hand,
China’s national defense imperatives demand that China must develop its nuclear

14

Li Bin, “The Impact of U.S. NMD on Chinese Nuclear Modernization”, http://www.pugwash.org/“Prospects for East Asian Nuclear Disarmament”

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weapons to a certain extent. Chinese decision-makers are faced with the task offinding the appropriate trade-off between the two competing goals. Their response isnuclear modernization.

China’s Nuclear Modernization
Since the late 1990s, concern over China’s nuclear modernization has been
increasing. Some western scholars are worried that it may mean China’s nuclear
policy is changing from minimum deterrence to limited deterrence, which requires amuch larger nuclear force than the former.15 However, when we look closely at thereported nuclear modernization efforts China is taking, it seems quite in line with
China’s current pronounced nuclear policy. I would argue that the modernization
efforts is aimed at sustaining the current nuclear policy, rather than changing it.
As a matter of fact, the task facing China’s leadership in terms of nuclear policy
seems to be rather clear: Maintain the credibility of China’s nuclear deterrence
capability. The constraints facing China are also evident: First, the nuclear force mustbe limited; second, China has pledged not to be the first to use nuclear weapons under
any conditions; third, the U.S., which is a possible to confront China in the event of amilitary solution to Taiwan issue, is developing NMD.
If we treat the former two constraints to be constant, that is, we assume that these
are the preconditions that will not change. Then, China’s only way to maintain its
nuclear deterrent capability will have to be nuclear modernization. By mobilizing its

15“China’s Nuclear Doctrine”, http://www.nti.org/db/china/doctrine.htm“Prospects for East Asian Nuclear Disarmament”

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nuclear weapons, China can improve the survivability of its nuclear arsenal. For
example, the road-mobile ICBMs will have a much higher probability of surviving apreemptive nuclear attack than their silo-based counterparts. SSBNs at sea, of course,
will have an even greater chance of survival. By MIRVing, China can also improvethe chances that its nuclear warhead will be able to reach the U.S. and penetrate U.S.
missile defense system. Other efforts may also include various penetration-aids. These
modest attempts at nuclear modernization aimed at maintaining the credibility of
nuclear deterrence do not run contrary to the nature of minimum nuclear deterrence,
rather, they are still in line with the words and spirit of China’s pronounced nuclear
policy.
I would wish to go one step further in arguing that, China is striving to maintainits minimum nuclear deterrence policy through nuclear modernization efforts. So longas these efforts are successful, so long will China stick faithfully to its current nuclear
policy and remain active in nuclear disarmament issues. Had China not decided tomodernize its nuclear arsenal, then, its nuclear policy would have been drasticallychanged. After all, the U.S. NMD is an external factor, which is not subject to China’s
control. If we follow the line of reasoning of Chinese decision-makers, it will beobvious that to achieve credible nuclear deterrence without nuclear modernization,
China will have to change its no-first-use policy, or significantly enlarge its nuclear
arsenal. While the former is a direct violation of its current nuclear policy, the second
will also be likely to invite criticism of a vertical nuclear proliferation, both of which
will be viewed as evidence of a “China threat”.
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All things considered, nuclear modernization is the most acceptable choice for
the Chinese, and also to the world at large.

When will China Change Its Nuclear Policy?
While it would be a misunderstanding to treat China’s nuclear modernization assigns of a changing nuclear policy, it would also be naïve to simple believe that China
will stick to its nuclear policy under any condition.
For one thing, should any drastic change which is of fundamental importance toChina’s national security occurs, China may consider changing its nuclear policy tosuit the new situation.
For another, when taking the historical records of China’s decision-making
process into consideration, especially with regard to military confrontation, China’s
decisions seemed to always come as a surprise to the outside world. For example,
when China marched into Korea in the early 1950s, the U.S. was taken by surprise,for they had thought China did not have much incentive to get involved in a major
warfare with a major power. Similarly, before the outbreak of the wars at theboundaries respectively with India, Soviet Union and Vietnam, China had withstood
the friction and gradual erosion of its territories at the boundaries without strong
attempts at revenge, so much so that its neighbors took it to mean that a little more
irritation would still be safe. When China did respond with force, it always came as asudden escalation into a war, the timing and intensity of which were almost invariably
out of the expectations of its adversaries.
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It seems that the characteristics of the Chinese decision-making can trace its
roots into China’s traditional thinking. Chinese traditional culture, which put a special
emphasis on “peace and harmony”, stresses “justice” and “righteousness” when it
comes to use of force. Therefore, when dealing with security concerns, China will try
its best to preserve “peace and harmony” at first, which usually translates into
indecision or inability to the foreign eye. While its adversaries believed it safe to go
further and further, however, China starts its “justification” process, keeping an
account on the injustices it has suffered. When it reaches a point where China
considers it justifiable to take action against the situation, it usually comes as asurprisingly radical action, which is a drastic and unexpected escalation of the conflictto the eye of an outside watcher. Maybe the question lies in that the limit of tolerance
that China sets for itself is different from the expectations of the outside world andcannot be readily understood by people from another culture. Indeed, in a certain
sense, the characteristics of China’s decision-making seem to be rather emotional, in
which it is hard to find the clear boundary of what it will tolerate and what it will not.
In terms of nuclear policy decision-making, it cannot be ruled out that under certain
situations China may also be capable of a sudden drastic change, although it would be
hard to say when and how.

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The Effects of Potential Nuclearization of North Korea and Japan to
China’s Nuclear Policy – A Hypothetical Question
Northeast Asia is an area where the interests of the world’s major powers
converge. Countries located here include China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, North
Korea. The U.S., although located an ocean apart, is also present in the region in thetangible form of forward-stationed forces in South Korea and Japan as well as
intangible form of security commitments to the two countries, including the nuclear
umbrella. Among these countries, the U.S., Russia, China all belong to the Big Five
Nuclear Club, which make this region the most nuclearized area in the world. To
make things worse, North Korea has broken its promise and started the dangerous
track towards nuclearization, which make the region the hottest site of nuclear
proliferation as well as nuclear confrontation.
From a Chinese perspective, it is definitely undesirable to have one or even two
to three newly nuclearized countries along its border line, all the more so because of
the potential direct military attack of the U.S. on North Korea over its nuclear
program. China is doing all it could to stop this from happening, as is evident from
China’s active efforts in arranging and hosting the Six-party talks.
However, even with all these joint efforts, things could still gone out of control.
What will it mean to China if the bottom finally fell out of the Korean Peninsula, i.e.,
the nuclear spiral started to roll on?

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Nuclearization of DPRK and Japan
Will it be the beginning of a hellish journey to self-destruction for North Korea
and this region if DPRK did go nuclear? The answer, it seems to me, depends.
First of all, it will depend upon how the U.S. will respond to the fact.
If, say, the U.S. could not tolerate a nuclear DPRK despite all the diplomaticefforts otherwise and strikes the DPRK nuclear sites, perhaps also accompanied with adirect attempt at a regime change of DPRK. Obviously, this is the worst thing tohappen, indicating the total failure of all diplomatic efforts to preserve peace, which
may lead to the final outbreak of the Korean Peninsula crisis. Considering China’s
present attitude to the North Korean nuclear program and its current international
relations, it is highly unlikely that China will stand up for DPRK as it did some fifty
years ago. Therefore, once that happened, DPRK would be on its own. If the DPRK
could not survive the strike, then it will collapse and perhaps disappear into ROK,
which will be followed with a painful process of national reunification of Korea,
during which the region will suffer from turmoil and economic regression. If, on theother hand, the North Koreans were able to retaliate, then the U.S. NMD system will
gain the first experience of being put into actual use. Let’s pray it will be effective.
Meanwhile, DPRK would still go broke, considering its weak economy andunsophisticated military forces relative to the U.S.. The result for the Koreans and theregion would not be much different: Mass suffering and regional turmoil coupled witheconomic regression for the next decades to come.

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From the lessons of the cold war and recent development of the situation inSouth Asia, however, it seems that nuclear weapons can act as a stabilizer in view of
war risks. It is trite lesson that the U.S. and Soviet Union never openly confronted
with each other in the form of a major war for fear of escalation into a nuclear war. In
South Asia, the newly nuclearized India and Pakistan also seemed to be much morerational when they approached to the brink of another war over Kashmir. While therelationship between the two countries is not improving substantially, it certainly is
not deteriorating much further.
If we assume the same logic somehow also worked here, that is, the U.S. chose
not to launch a military attack against DPRK. Another nuclear country emerged in
Northeast Asia. What will this mean to the region?
To China, it does not pose a threat. As the two countries have always been
friendly, North Koreans’ nuclear bomb, undesirable as it is, will not have much effecton China’s security per se. Similarly, it will also be innocuous to Russia.
The countries that will feel threatened, of course, will be the U.S., South Korea
and Japan. The options available to the U.S. have already been discussed above, what
remain to be analyzed are the options South Korea and Japan might take.
For the ROK and Japan, they could choose to remain under U.S. nuclear
umbrella. If this is the situation, things will be stable unless the DPRK initiated a
conflict. As a small country with a nearly broken economy, it seems a suicidal option
to choose to wage a war against much stronger opponents without any outside support
at all, therefore, the risks of DPRK initiating a war are extremely slim. Chances are, as“Prospects for East Asian Nuclear Disarmament”

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DPRK consistently claims, what it wants is a secured peaceful environment, in whichit could perhaps also get more economic aid. If the small probability event did happen,
then, similar to the scenario mentioned earlier, DPRK would lose the war, resulting inperhaps more suffering to its own people and the region as a whole.
On the other hand, the ROK and Japan might also choose to develop their own
nuclear weapons. In taking this option, it would mean the casting off of the U.S.
nuclear umbrella with the U.S. assent. Unlikely as it is, what if it does happen like this?
What will this mean to China?
The nuclear weapons of ROK will not be a threat to China, for the Korean people
and Chinese people have traditionally been friendly with each other, and the twocountries have also been on friendly terms.
What might become a threat to China, is the nuclearization of Japan. To China,
Japan’s nucelarization would mean the final and decisive step in the revival ofJapanese militarism, which would lead to a fundamental change in China’s evaluationof Japan. As for now, despite the rise of anti-Japanese emotions among Chinese
people, the Chinese government has always been proactive in the development of thebilateral relations. However, with nuclearization of Japan, everything will change.
Considering the territorial dispute of the Diaoyu Island, as well as the historicalmemories of Japanese imperialism, China will have to put more emphasis on guarding
against the Japanese military recklessness. Things will look especially tough for
China, as Japan already has a massive nuclear potential in terms of both fissile
material and nuclear weaponization technology.
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In this scenario, will China’s nuclear policy be affected? Still, the answer is:
hardly. Considering Japan’s geographical reality and dense population, it seems to be
especially vulnerable to nuclear attacks. A nuclearized Japan, to China, will offer
China an opportunity to use nuclear weapons on Japan in a major conflict, unlikely as
it might be, which could perhaps offset China’s relative disadvantage in terms of
conventional weaponry. The potential quantitative or qualitative superiority of nuclear
weapons above a certain level does not really matter that much for the purpose of
nuclear deterrence. Therefore, China may not change its nuclear policy with Japan
going nuclear.
In summary, so long as China’s core national interest does not face threat orsituations do not warrant a significant net gain, China’s nuclear policy is not likely tochange, not even with DPRK or Japan going nuclear. However, this does not in theleast mean that China will accept the nuclearization of the two Koreas or Japan.
Rather, even without the disastrous situations that the region would land into with thenuclearization, it is still a dire picture for the region and the world. For with so much
more nuclear weapons in countries with such complicated relations, the risk of a
nuclear disaster due to mishandling, false information, theft or mechanic failure is
extremely high. It is not only a new round of nuclear proliferation in itself, but also a
trigger of more nuclear proliferation, which will be a huge setback for the nuclear
arms control cause.

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Northeast Asia Nuclear Disarmament Initiatives
The ultimate goal of nuclear disarmament in Northeast Asia region should be toestablish a nuclear-free zone in this region. The imminent task, however, is to solve
the Korean nuclear issue, i.e., to dissuade DPRK from its nuclear program. The
Six-party talks are a very good beginning to engage North Koreans. To successfully
dissuade DPRK, however, more concrete efforts are also needed.
In addition to raising the costs of nuclearization to DPRK, it will also help toincrease its gains from giving up its nuclear program. Addressing its security concerns
as well as providing economic assistance will be possible measures to take. However,to convince the North Koreans of the unnecessary of its nuclear program, it would
also be very helpful for the other countries in the region to reduce their reliance on
nuclear weapons.
Reducing the reliance on nuclear weapons will not only be conducive to thesolving of Korean nuclear issue in particular, but also contribute to the nuclear
disarmament cause in this region in general. Current nuclear powers of this region,
China, Russia and the U.S. should take the lead in reducing reliance on nuclear
weapons. A mutual no-first-use pledge of nuclear weapons may be a suitable first step
to go. China and Russia already have a mutual no-first-use agreement, but there iscurrently no such agreements between China and the U.S., or the U.S. and Russia. It ishigh time now for the three countries to proceed to an agreement of no-first-use. Byreaching such a multilateral no-first-use agreement, the major nuclear powers willshow to the world and especially other countries in this region their willingness to“Prospects for East Asian Nuclear Disarmament”

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reduce their reliance on nuclear weapons, which is the first step towards nuclear
disarmament.
Steps to follow may include the withdrawal of the U.S. nuclear umbrella over
ROK and Japan, withdrawal of nuclear-armed submarines from the waters in thisregion, ect. While the de-nuclearization may take some time to actualize, it is worth
continued efforts to push for it.

Conclusion
China’s foreign policy and defense policy put conflicting demands on China’s
nuclear policy, to which China responded with nuclear modernization efforts, which isa means to maintain its current minimum deterrence nuclear policy rather thanchanging it. Due to China’s traditional thinking, the decision-making regarding
China’s nuclear policy would be capable of radical changes, though it is hard to say
how and when. Although China’s nuclear policy is not likely to be affected by DPRK
or Japan going nuclear, China does have a strong incentive in promoting a
nuclear-free Northeast Asia, to which a no-first-use agreement among the major
nuclear powers in this region may be a suitable first step to go.

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