By Saadet Gokce
ISTANBUL (AA) - China on Tuesday urged the US to “safeguard” global strategic stability as the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia is set to expire on Thursday.
Beijing has noted “the constructive proposals previously put forward by Russia regarding follow-up arrangements to the New START Treaty and hopes the US will respond positively and genuinely uphold global strategic stability,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a news conference, as reported by the state-run daily Global Times.
In September 2025, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed extending the treaty for another year.
He warned that its expiration on Feb. 5 would mark “the imminent demise of the last international agreement directly limiting nuclear missile capabilities.”
However, the US has yet to respond to the proposal.
The START treaty is the only remaining arms control agreement between the US and Russia after the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019.
Lin also said China’s position on trilateral nuclear arms control negotiations between Beijing, Moscow and Washington remains “clear,” stressing that the nuclear forces of China and the US are not “on the same level at all.”
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Russia holds the world’s largest nuclear arsenal with 5,459 warheads, followed by the US with 5,177. Together, the two countries account for about 90% of the world’s total nuclear weapons.
“At this stage, asking China to join nuclear disarmament negotiations is neither fair nor reasonable,” Lin said.
US President Donald Trump has spoken “repeatedly of addressing the threat nuclear weapons pose to the world and indicated that he would like to keep limits on nuclear weapons and involve China in arms control talks,” a White House official said, according to The Financial Times.