Arms Control and Sino-U.S. Strategic Stability

T he centrality of arms control in U.S. nuclear strategy was clear in the cold war. Arms control was a tool for coping with instability in the nuclear relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. After the cold war, arms control has been seen as both a tool for consolidating the new peace (by the Clinton Administration) and as a dangerous restraint on U.S. freedom of action (by the George W. Bush Administration). In the U.S.-China relationship, nuclear arms control has never played a significant role. Should it play such a role? Might it play such a role in the future? To explore answers to these questions, this chapter proceeds as follows. It begins with a short review of the limited current role of arms control in the bilateral relationship. It then examines first Chinese and then U.S. thinking about the potential future of nuclear arms control. The chapter then speculates about how conditions might change leading to a different view in the future of the role of arms control in enhancing strategic stability. 1 These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.