WASHINGTON - When negotiators from the United States and Russia met in Vienna last week to discuss renewing the last major nuclear arms control treaty that still exists between the two countries, US officials surprised their counterparts with a classified briefing on new and threatening nuclear capabilities - not Russia's, but China's.
The American message was clear: Mr Trump will not renew any major arms control treaty that China does not also join - dangling the possibility that Mr Trump would abandon New START altogether if he did not get his way. The treaty expires in February, just weeks after the next presidential inauguration.
Nuclear weapons have suddenly become a new area of contention between Mr Trump and President Xi Jinping of China, and there are many reasons to believe that even if the three superpowers are not yet in a full-scale arms race, what is taking place in negotiating rooms around the world may soon start one.
"The Chinese have no incentive whatsoever to participate," said Mr Gates, who as CIA director confronted China over its sale to Iran of missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads. And if Mr Trump continues on the current course, Mr Gates said, he will end up essentially inviting"the Chinese to build dramatically more, far more, nuclear weapons than we think they have at the current time to get level with the United States".
But the Americans abandoned the idea, determining it was simply too dangerous. A top secret State Department study, since declassified, concluded in April 1964 that the risk of a Chinese nuclear capability"is not such as to justify the undertaking of actions which would involve great political costs or high military risks".Now Mr Billingslea argues that new activities underway at Lop Nor, combined with China's far greater reach in space and at sea, once again put America at risk.
Mr Obama and Mr Biden never sought ratification, realising they would lose. But the past four presidents have abided by the treaty's ban on nuclear tests. That may be coming to an end: Mr Billingslea confirmed that the Trump administration had discussed"unsigning" the treaty and debated whether the US should return to nuclear testing, which it has not engaged in since 1992. But he said there was no need to do so for now.
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