In recent years the Trump administration had attempted to bring China into so-called trilateral arms control negotiations, which Beijing consistently balked at. Trump had considered landmark 20th century arms treaties with Russia to be "weak" due to not accounting for China's rapidly advancing defense technology and arsenal.
For example, in summer of 2019 the US announced its formal withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia, citing that a "new, better" agreement was needed which will bring in China. Also of note is that the INF had prevented the US from deploying ground-based intermediate-range missiles in Asia. The New START nuclear arms control agreement had also reportedly been on the chopping block by the tail end of the Trump administration, but among Biden's first major actions in office was to extend it by five years.
But it now appears that Biden agrees with Trump's fundamental principal of the urgency to bring China to the nuclear negotiating table. Trump's central rationale was articulated in one July 2020 statement as follows: "The president believes that it shouldn’t just be the U.S. and Russia... The days of unilateral American disarmament are over."
In recent years the Trump administration had attempted to bring China into so-called trilateral arms control negotiations, which Beijing consistently balked at. Trump had considered landmark 20th century arms treaties with Russia to be "weak" due to not accounting for China's rapidly advancing defense technology and arsenal.
For example, in summer of 2019 the US announced its formal withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia, citing that a "new, better" agreement was needed which will bring in China. Also of note is that the INF had prevented the US from deploying ground-based intermediate-range missiles in Asia. The New START nuclear arms control agreement had also reportedly been on the chopping block by the tail end of the Trump administration, but among Biden's first major actions in office was to extend it by five years.
But it now appears that Biden agrees with Trump's fundamental principal of the urgency to bring China to the nuclear negotiating table. Trump's central rationale was articulated in one July 2020 statement as follows: "The president believes that it shouldn’t just be the U.S. and Russia... The days of unilateral American disarmament are over."
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