US-China Relations and Nuclear Weapons in Northeast Asia

ABSTRACT

If Northeast Asia is to have a nuclear weapons-free future, the United States and China must cooperate to make it happen. Unfortunately, decision-makers in both nuclear-armed states are preparing for a future military conflict and are upgrading their nuclear arsenals. In the United States, decision-makers are dependent on a cadre of security bureaucrats who circumscribe acceptable policy options. A review of the past and the present shows that the orthodox policies produced by these bureaucrats failed to resolve longstanding security problems in Northeast Asia: problems that decision-makers try to keep at bay with threats and preparations to use nuclear weapons. If US decision-makers were willing to see that history through Chinese eyes, with the aim of understanding how it influences Chinese decisions and actions in the present, the prospects for a nuclear-free future in Northeast Asia might be brighter.

KEYWORDS:

• US-China relations
• nuclear weapon
• Northeast Asia
• diplomacy

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Comment made during a December 2022 on-line seminar conducted under Chatham House Rules..

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gregory Kulacki

Gregory Kulacki is the China Project Manager of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a Visiting Fellow at RECNA, Nagasaki University. His research focuses on China’s nuclear arms control policy and US extended nuclear deterrence policy in East Asia, where Gregory has lived and worked for the better part of the last thirty years.