China threatens to end the nuclear non-proliferation treaty

A Japanese nuclear arsenal will trigger sharp insecurities in South Korea, and surprisingly China's President Xi Jinping seems not to have anticipated that the same reaction will occur in his own capital. These concerns may weaken the U.S. overall security architecture in Asia, or alternately they may strengthen it, as they did in Europe.

China's President Xi Jinping, pictured. China’s implicit warning on Oct. 21 that it would abandon the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in retaliation for the AUKUS submarine deal between the U.S., the UK, and Australia, is a cheap act of public diplomacy, and is against China’s own self-interest, writes Julian Spencer-Churchill. Photograph courtesy of Commons Wikimedia

Opinion

BY JULIAN SPENCER-CHURCHILL

October 27, 2021

MONTREAL— The end of the NPT in Asia could lead to a nuclear buildup, which in its milder form will see U.S. nuclear weapons re-deployed to South Korea and the Philippines, and deployed in Japan, Australia, and Taiwan. A sharper outcome would be a re-initiation of 1970s-era nuclear weapons resear...

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