Beijing has accused NATO of “nuclear blackmail” after the security alliance’s chief remarked that members are in talks about deploying more nuclear missiles to better counter potential threats from Russia and China.
“We demand that NATO stop spreading false narratives, cease nuclear blackmail and coercion, and refrain from going further down the wrong path,” Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson Wu Qian told reporters Thursday.
In an interview with The Telegraph published earlier this month, outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said discussions continue about putting nuclear warheads on standby but declined to mention how many.
The 65-year-old also called for greater transparency about the bloc’s nuclear capabilities and exercises, adding that “as long as nuclear weapons exist, we will remain a nuclear alliance because a world where Russia, China, and North Korea have nuclear weapons, and NATO does not, is a more dangerous world.”
Wu said NATO was “hyping up the ‘Chinese nuclear threat.'” He then said that NATO has, in recent years, continuously enhanced the role of nuclear weapons in its collective security policy; strengthened the ‘nuclear sharing’ arrangement; and upgraded and modernized the nuclear weapons deployed by the United States in [other] NATO countries.” This has “raised the risk of a nuclear arms race and conflict,” he added.
Newsweek reached out to NATO and the U.S. Department of Defense with written requests for comment.
In the communique issued after NATO’s 2021 summit in Brussels, the alliance reaffirmed the importance of nuclear deterrence in its strategy.
Three of NATO’s 32 members—the U.S., United Kingdom, and France—are nuclear states, though only the first two have committed to using their nuclear arsenals in defense of a NATO ally.
Turkey, Italy, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands house American nuclear weapons under NATO’s sharing agreement. For the first time since 2008, the U.S. is also preparing to station some in the U.K.
In the Telegraph interview, Stoltenberg also issued a warning about China’s strong investments in modern weapons and its nuclear stockpile, which he said is on track to reach 1,000 warheads by 2030.
China is believed to have roughly 500, compared to the U.S. and Russia’s more than 5,000 each. China also has several nuclear-capable missiles that have the range to strike the continental U.S. if launched from China’s east coast or a submarine.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in a report this month wrote that it believes China has deployed some of its warheads, a first for the East Asian country.
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