China agrees to nuclear arms-control talks with US -WSJ.

The Wall Street Journal said on Wednesday that China and the United States will hold their first nuclear weapons limitation negotiations since the Obama administration next week.

Following Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Washington on Monday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that the two nations will undertake “consultations on arms control and non-proliferation” in the coming days, in addition to separate discussions on maritime affairs and other topics.

Mallory Stewart, a senior State Section official, and Sun Xiaobo, the chief of China’s Foreign Ministry’s weapons-control section, will lead those armament discussions on Monday, according to a Wall Street Journal article.

When Reuters asked the U.S. State Department and China’s embassy in Washington for comments on the schedule or nature of the negotiations, they did not immediately reply.

The Chinese and American presidents had decided to “look to begin to carry forward discussion on strategic stability,” according to U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in 2021. This was a reference to Washington’s worries over Beijing’s nuclear weapons buildup.

At the same time, however, the White House quickly clarified that the conversations would not be official weapons reduction negotiations, as the U.S. has held with Russia.

Since then, Chinese authorities have not shown much interest in talking about ways to lower the risk of nuclear weapons, which has frustrated U.S. officials.

China possesses more than 500 active nuclear weapons and is expected to have more than 1,000 warheads by 2030, according to information released by the Pentagon in October. Beijing, meanwhile, has long maintained that America already possesses a far greater arsenal. The weapons negotiations would take place ahead of what is anticipated to be a November meeting in San Francisco between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden; however, a senior Biden administration official stated on Tuesday that crucial details are still pending.

The United States downing of a suspected Chinese spy balloon over the United States in February precipitated a rapid deterioration of ties between China and the United States, which has led to a flurry of diplomatic contacts between the two nations in recent months, mainly at Washington’s request.

The long-overdue weapons negotiations, according to Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based weapons control association, would probably center on encouraging increased openness of each nation’s nuclear policies and more efficient crisis-communication systems.

“But I don’t believe we should anticipate any breakthroughs very soon. It will require patience and compromise on both sides, Kimball stated.