China to Skip US-Russia Nuclear Talks

Foreign Ministry rejects US invite

China will not attend US-Russia nuclear disarmament talks on June 22, with the Foreign Ministry considering the US invite ‘ridiculous.’ Russia downplayed this, saying they never expected China to attend.

The US and Russia are to discuss ways to get nuclear arms limitation back going. The US has tried to condition this on limiting China too, even though China has far fewer arms than the US or China.

Russia has said they’re fine with bilateral talks or broader ones. China is not interested at all, and the open question is if the US will keep delaying the talks over China.

Russia has already warned it may be too late to extend New START in time, with or without China. Either way, US officials are threatening a new arms race.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.