by Our Foreign Affairs Editor
The publication of China’s Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation in the New Era in the last week of November is less a routine policy disclosure than a deliberate intervention in a global security debate that has lost both coherence and restraint. Issued at a time when wars persist, arms races accelerate, and treaties unravel, the document situates itself within what it calls a “historic crossroads,” where humanity must again choose “between peace and war, dialogue and confrontation, win-win cooperation and zero-sum game.” The white paper does not treat arms control as a peripheral technical matter; it presents it as a civilizational safeguard against regression into coercion, hierarchy, and what it bluntly describes as “the law of the jungle.”
The framing is unapologetically historical and normative. “Peace and development are eternal themes of human society,” the preface states, while cautioning that peace “needs to be fought for and be upheld.” This is not rhetorical ornamentation but the conceptual spine of the document. Arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation are portrayed as instruments to “mitigate the risk of war, address the security deficit, and promote global peace,” rather than as bargaining chips in great-power competition. By placing these efforts within the memory of the World Anti-Fascist War and the founding of the United Nations, China is making a claim about legitimacy: that the post-war multilateral order, however strained, remains the only viable barrier against systemic conflict.
The paper’s diagnosis of current international security is unsparing. It acknowledges shifts toward multipolar equilibrium and renewed interest in multilateralism, yet insists that these trends are being overwhelmed by “hegemonism, power politics, and unilateralism.” The repeated reference to “a certain country” is deliberate and accusatory, leaving little ambiguity about responsibility for what the document calls an “escalating international and regional arms race.” According to the text, the pursuit of “absolute strategic superiority,” the expansion of military alliances, the exercise of extended deterrence, and the forward deployment of intermediate-range missiles have collectively “severely undermined the security and interests of countries in the region.” This critique is not limited to conventional forces but extends into nuclear doctrine, missile defense, outer space, cyberspace, and artificial intelligence.
Nowhere is this sharper than in the discussion of strategic stability. The white paper argues that persistent adjustments to nuclear policy, the maintenance of massive nuclear stockpiles, and the enhancement of nuclear war-fighting capabilities have “resulted in rising risks of global nuclear conflicts.” Missile defense systems are treated not as protective measures but as destabilizing technologies that distort offense–defense calculations and incentivize escalation. The erosion of arms control regimes through treaty withdrawals is framed as a systemic injury, not merely a diplomatic setback, with the warning that nonproliferation has been hollowed out by “pragmatism and double standards.”
Against this environment, China’s own posture is presented as one of calculated limitation rather than competitive accumulation. The document reiterates that China has always advocated “the complete prohibition and thorough destruction” of nuclear weapons and has adhered to a no-first-use policy “from the day it came into possession of these weapons.” It unconditionally commits not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states or nuclear-weapon-free zones. The paper insists that China’s nuclear forces exist solely “for defense and self-protection,” noting that China has “never deployed nuclear weapons outside its own territories, and has never provided a nuclear umbrella for other countries.”
The emphasis on minimum deterrence is reinforced by empirical claims. China states that it has exercised “the utmost restraint regarding the scale and development of its nuclear weapons,” has conducted “the smallest number of nuclear tests among all nuclear-weapon states,” and has closed nuclear weapon research and production facilities in multiple regions. Modernization is described not as expansion but as survivability and reliability enhancement, aimed at ensuring deterrence rather than dominance. The document goes so far as to argue that China’s greatest contribution to nuclear arms control lies in the consistency of its policy, calling it “the most stable, consistent and predictable nuclear policy among all nuclear-weapon states.”
At the same time, the white paper does not confine itself to declaratory restraint. It advances concrete proposals that challenge prevailing nuclear hierarchies. China calls for nuclear disarmament to proceed through “a just and reasonable process of gradual reduction towards a downward balance,” placing primary responsibility on states with the largest arsenals. It reiterates support for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and a verifiable Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, while repeatedly pressing for a legally binding agreement on mutual no-first-use. The argument is explicit: reducing nuclear risk cannot coexist with doctrines that normalize first use or embed nuclear weapons at the center of alliance security.
China’s position on nonproliferation disputes further exposes fault lines in the existing order. The white paper sharply criticizes arrangements that transfer weapons-grade nuclear materials to non-nuclear-weapon states, warning that such practices “run counter to the object and purpose of the NPT and severely undermine the international nuclear nonproliferation regime.” It rejects nuclear sharing and extended deterrence as corrosive to treaty integrity and calls for consensus-based decision-making within the International Atomic Energy Agency. Here, nonproliferation is framed not as selective enforcement but as a universal obligation.
Beyond nuclear weapons, the document devotes sustained attention to biological, chemical, missile, and conventional arms control, consistently advancing the same logic: security cannot be monopolized. In biosecurity, China emphasizes that “biosecurity knows no borders” and warns against the misuse of emerging biotechnologies. It presents domestic legal measures, such as the Biosecurity Law, alongside international initiatives, including support for a legally binding verification mechanism under the Biological Weapons Convention. Chemical weapons are addressed with similar rigor, particularly through the insistence that abandoned weapons, especially those left by Japan in China, remain an unresolved historical and legal responsibility. The paper leaves little room for equivocation, stating that destroying these weapons is “an unshirkable historical, political and legal responsibility.”
The discussion of emerging domains marks a clear attempt to shape future norms before militarization becomes irreversible. On outer space, China opposes “the weaponization of outer space” and any effort to turn it into “a new theater of conflict,” advocating legally binding constraints and UN-centered governance. In cyberspace, it advances the concept of cyber sovereignty as an extension of sovereign equality, rejecting the use of digital tools for interference, coercion, or regime destabilization. The condemnation of “large-scale, systemic and indiscriminate theft and cyberattacks” is explicit, as is the rejection of military blocs in cyberspace.
Artificial intelligence is treated with unusual caution for a major military power. China argues that military applications of AI must not “undermine humanity’s wellbeing,” insisting that human control and accountability remain paramount. It declares that China “does not and will not engage in any AI arms race,” while calling for an inclusive international governance framework and opposing the erection of “deliberately created sci-tech barriers.”
Running through the entire document is a persistent defense of developing countries’ right to peaceful uses of science and technology. Export controls, the paper argues, must not become tools of decoupling or economic coercion. The repeated adoption of the UN resolution on “Promoting International Cooperation on Peaceful Uses in the Context of International Security” is presented as evidence of growing resistance to discriminatory regimes.
The conclusion returns to first principles. Arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation are described as “an important barrier, preventing humanity from slipping into the abyss of war.” The warning is stark: without renewed commitment to multilateralism, international relations risk reverting to domination by force. China positions itself as a counterweight to that trajectory, pledging to “stand firmly on the right side of history and on the side of human progress,” to “practice true multilateralism,” and to provide “reliable stability in a turbulent world.”
Whether one accepts all of China’s claims or not, the white paper demands engagement rather than dismissal. It articulates a comprehensive vision that challenges prevailing security orthodoxies, questions selective rule-making, and insists that arms control remains inseparable from justice, equity, and historical responsibility. In a period marked by strategic anxiety and institutional decay, the document reads less like a bureaucratic statement and more like a challenge to an international system that has forgotten the cost of abandoning restraint.
