China on Sunday criticized a U.S. government report that cast Beijing as a potential nuclear adversary and called on Washington to reduce its own much larger arsenal and join in promoting regional stability.
FILE - In this Nov. 9, 2017 file photo, an American flag is flown next to the Chinese national emblem during a welcome ceremony for visiting U.S. President Donald Trump outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)
A Defense Ministry statement said China's nuclear arsenal is the "minimum level" required for security. It pledged never to be the first to use nuclear weapons "under any circumstances."
The sweeping U.S. nuclear strategy review issued Friday said Washington wants to prevent Beijing from mistakenly concluding that any use of nuclear weapons, however limited, is acceptable.
"The Chinese side expresses firm opposition" to the report, said a ministry spokesman, Ren Guoqiang.
"We hope the U.S. will abandon a Cold War mentality and earnestly shoulder its special and prior responsibility for its own nuclear disarmament," said Ren.
The ruling Communist Party's military wing, the People's Liberation Army, has the world's fifth-largest nuclear arsenal, with 300 warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The United States and Russia each have about 7,000 warheads, or about 20 times as many as Beijing.
Beijing has rattled Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asian governments with increasingly assertive gestures and belligerent comments aimed at enforcing its claims to disputed islands and swathes of ocean.
In December, China sent bombers and fighter planes to fly around Taiwan, the self-ruled island the communist mainland claims as its territory. The warplanes flew near South Korean and Japanese air space, prompting Japan to dispatch fighter jets to intercept them.
The Defense Ministry statement said global peace and development "are irreversible trends" and called on Washington to work with Beijing to "jointly safeguard peace, stability and prosperity in this region and the world."
President Donald Trump's nuclear doctrine breaks with his predecessor, Barack Obama, by ending a push to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. military policy.
In a written statement, Trump on Friday said U.S. strategy is designed to make use of nuclear weapons less likely. But arms control group criticized it as reckless.
Friday's report endorsed adhering to U.S. arms control agreements, including the New START treaty that limits the United States and Russia each to 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads on a maximum of 700 deployed launchers.
The U.S. government says it has been in compliance since August and expects Moscow to comply by the deadline, which is Monday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Israel this week briefed Biden administration officials on a plan to evacuate Palestinian civilians ahead of a potential operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah aimed at rooting out Hamas militants, according to U.S. officials familiar with the talks.
The officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity to speak about the sensitive exchange, said that the plan detailed by the Israelis did not change the U.S. administration’s view that moving forward with an operation in Rafah would put too many innocent Palestinian civilians at risk.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to carry out a military operation in Rafah despite warnings from President Joe Biden and other western officials that doing so would result in more civilian deaths and worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis.
The Biden administration has said there could be consequences for Israel should it move forward with the operation without a credible plan to safeguard civilians.
“Absent such a plan, we can’t support a major military operation going into Rafah because the damage it would do is beyond what’s acceptable,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said late Friday at the Sedona Forum, an event in Arizona hosted by the McCain Institute.
Some 1.5 million Palestinians have sheltered in the southern Gaza city as the territory has been ravaged by the war that began on Oct. 7 after Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.
The United Nations humanitarian aid agency on Friday said that hundreds of thousands of people would be “at imminent risk of death” if Israel moves forward with the Rafah assault. The border city is a critical entry point for humanitarian aid and is filled with displaced Palestinians, many in densely packed tent camps.
The officials added that the evacuation plan that the Israelis briefed was not finalized and both sides agreed to keep discussing the matter.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Friday that no “comprehensive” plan for a potential Rafah operation has been revealed by the Israelis to the White House. The operation, however, has been discussed during recent calls between Biden and Netanyahu as well as during recent virtual talks with top Israeli and U.S. national security officials.
“We want to make sure that those conversations continue because it is important to protect those Palestinian lives — those innocent lives,” Jean-Pierre said.
The revelation of Israel's continued push to carry out a Rafah operation came as CIA director William Burns arrived Friday in Egypt, where negotiators are trying to seal a cease-fire accord between Israel and Hamas.
Hamas is considering the latest proposal for a cease-fire and hostage release put forward by U.S., Egyptian and Qatari mediators, who are looking to avert the Rafah operation.
They have publicly pressed Hamas to accept the terms of the deal that would lead to an extended cease-fire and an exchange of Israeli hostages taken captive on Oct. 7 and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Hamas has said it will send a delegation to Cairo in the coming days for further discussions on the offer, though it has not specified when.
Israel, and its allies, have sought to increase pressure on Hamas on the hostage negotiation. Signaling that Israel continues to move forward with its planning for a Rafah operation could be a tactic to nudge the militants to finalize the deal.
Netanyahu said earlier this week that Israeli forces would enter Rafah, which Israel says is Hamas’ last stronghold, regardless of whether a truce-for-hostages deal is struck. His comments appeared to be meant to appease his nationalist governing partners, and it was not clear whether they would have any bearing on any emerging deal with Hamas.
Blinken visited the region, including Israel, this week and called the latest proposal “extraordinarily generous” and said “the time to act is now.”
In Arizona on Friday, Blinken repeated remarks he made earlier this week that "the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a cease-fire is Hamas.”
The Chahine family prepares to bury two adults and five boys and girls under the age of 16 after an overnight Israeli strike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, May 3, 2024. An Israeli strike on the city of Rafah on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip killed several people, including children, hospital officials said Friday. (AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)
FILE - Palestinians line up for free food during the ongoing Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip in Rafah, Jan. 9, 2024. A top U.N. official said Friday, May 3, 2024, that hard-hit northern Gaza was now in “full-blown famine" after more than six months of war between Israel and Hamas and severe Israeli restrictions on food deliveries to the Palestinian territory. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali, File)
Palestinians rescue a woman survived after the Israeli bombardment on a residential building of Abu Alenan family in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, early Saturday, May 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)
President Joe Biden walks across the South Lawn of the White House as he talks with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Washington, after returning from a trip to North Carolina. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
