Why the West is suddenly softening on China: power grows out of nuclear warheads

Weeks before Xi Jinping met various leaders in San Francisco, the US released an estimate of China’s nuclear stockpile
Now, the EU and UK seem to be holding out an olive branch to China, especially with the surprise appointment of David Cameron as foreign secretary

Bob Savic

Published: 4:30pm, 25 Nov 2023

Why you can trust SCMP

In a much-publicised report issued on October 19, the US Department of Defence estimated China’s stock of operational nuclear warheads to be at 500, and exceeding 1,000 by 2030. This contrasts with its 2020 report that estimated a stockpile “in the low-200s”, which would grow to about 400 by the end of the decade.

Beijing has consistently dismissed these reports, asserting they are used to serve Washington’s strategic interest of portraying China as a threat to global security.

Irrespective of whether the reports are accurate or fictional, the West has probably decided to err on the side of caution and accept the findings. There has been a discernible shift as Western governments actively seek areas of mutual cooperation with Beijing.

Ultimately, this turn of events probably reflects Western concern over a nuclear arms race fuelled by dangerously destabilising great-power rivalry between China and the United States, at a time when the West is grappling with so-called fatigue in its conflict with Russia over Ukraine.

Further, there is the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza. The major Western powers’ failure to back a non-binding UN resolution calling for a truce, which was supported by China and the vast majority of non-Western states, has opened a yawning rift between the West and the Global South.

In any case, one cannot rule out both factors in the West’s approach to China. The most high-profile rapprochement with China was clearly reached when Chinese President Xi Jinping met US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the Apec summit in San Francisco.

03:47

‘Door to China-US relations will not be closed again’: Xi Jinping offers assurances to US businesses

After a year of hyper-tense relations between Beijing and Washington – over then US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and the Chinese “spy balloon” over mainland America – the Biden administration’s four-hour talks with Xi and senior Chinese officials signified a new strategy of constructive engagement.

As widely reported, the meeting concluded with an agreement to resume military-to-military communications, deemed vital in the context of increasingly knife-edge naval and air activities, by both sides, in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea.

Also on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco, Xi held talks with Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for the first time in a year.

Aside from their ongoing territorial dispute, tensions had erupted over Beijing’s detention of a Japanese national on grounds of espionage. Beijing had also banned the import of Japanese seafood in response to Tokyo discharging treated water from the Fukushima nuclear facility into the sea.

In San Francisco, Beijing and Tokyo agreed to launch high-level talks in advancing their mutual economic interests, as well as discussions about export controls on critical minerals. More broadly, they reaffirmed a 2008 commitment to advancing strategic and mutually beneficial relations, which covers both economic and security concerns.

At the summit in San Francisco, Xi also met Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr. Notably, the Marcos administration has aligned itself more closely with the US and the West than the previous Rodrigo Duterte administration, which pivoted towards China.

02:03

Beijing and Manila trade blame over ‘provocative’ moves with ship collisions near disputed shoal

Under Marcos, Manila has granted US forces greater access to Philippine military bases, including some facing the South China Sea or Taiwan – which Beijing vociferously opposes. Tensions in the South China Sea also recently came to a head with collisions between Chinese and Philippine vessels.

Marcos said he and Xi agreed that geopolitical issues should not be at the forefront of their bilateral ties.

Other leaders, further afield, may also be seeking to offer Beijing an olive branch. In early November, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said a summit with the Chinese government would take place in China in December, the first in-person European Union-China summit in four years.

China’s climate ambitions send an important message to the world

The EU leader revealed that four intensive high-level dialogues had taken place before the upcoming summit. Even so, her somewhat surprising announcement – given that Beijing had announced neither a date nor a venue for the meeting at the time – may be indicative of an easing of the EU’s recent combative approach towards China.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, delivers her state of the union address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on September 13. Photo: Bloomberg

Lastly, and in an even greater surprise, was the appointment of Britain’s former prime minister David Cameron as the new foreign secretary on November 13. There has been much speculation about why the current British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, would bring Cameron back into the cabinet after he spent several years outside politics.

Among those reasons is likely to be that Cameron made high-level international contact when in office, not the least of which was crafting the “golden era” of relations with China, even having a pint of beer with Xi at a British pub.

Needless to say, one may argue that all the above are a series of unconnected coincidences. Yet, the collective West, as it is often referred to nowadays, has acted in unprecedented unison over the last year and a half in meeting great geopolitical challenges.

In this regard, the new Pentagon report on China’s substantial upscaling of its nuclear stockpile, no matter whether it is accurate or not, may have been all that was necessary to prompt Western decision-makers to act swiftly, and in concert, thus averting any escalation of geopolitical tensions that might imperil the West’s still dominant global position.

Bob Savic is head of international trade at the Global Policy Institute in London, UK, and a visiting professor at the University of Nottingham’s Asia Research Institute