As China is starting to feel the pressure of the QUAD and the new military alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, (AUKUS), a senior Chinese diplomat has said that the time has come for Beijing to abandon its ‘no-first-use’ policy of the use nuclear weapons to push back against new alliances forming in the Pacific.
Sha Zukang, is China’s former ambassador to the UN, told a summit of Chinese nuclear policy experts and was quoted by Daily Mail that it is time to ‘re- examine and fine-tune’ a long-standing commitment to only use nukes in retaliation as the US ‘builds new military alliances and as it increases its military presence in our neighbourhood.’
Beijing conducted its first nuclear test in 1963 and since then has employed the no first use policy and as per them it is necessary to have the ‘moral high ground’ but ‘is not suitable . . . unless China-US negotiations agree that neither side would use [nuclear weapons] first,’ he said at a meeting in Beijing last week.
Zukang warned the US, India, Japan and Australia who formed an alliance named QUAD which is more to do with ending China’s supply chain hegemony and ensure the Indo-Pacific remains free.
When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in the US, his opening remarks at the first in-person Leaders’ Summit of the Quadrilateral Dialogue between the US, India, Japan and Australia he said “the QUAD will work as a force for global good, and that he has faith the QUAD countries will help ensure peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region and the world.”
Modi also thanked US President Joe Biden for arranging the leaders’ summit and said after the 2004 Tsunami, the four countries have for the first time come together for the assistance of the Indo-Pacific region. “As part of the Quad platform we are today helping the world that is grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic. Our Quad vaccine initiative will be a big help to the Indo-Pacific nations,” he said.
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