Alison Williams, Wimbledon CND Disarmament Coalition, reports on a Pugwash webinar featuring Zhou Bo, on 8 October 2024.

Pugwash-UK had a speaker well qualified to report on this topic: Zhou Bo had been a Colonel in the Army, in charge of Arms Control in the Civil Service and he is now an academic; a Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Strategy and Security in Beijing.

In the wider context of the Chinese approach to Nuclear Disarmament he spoke most about their commitment to a No First Use policy. He accepts that a nuclear ban is not going to be globally effective short-term and that amid growing competition and modernisation Nuclear Weapon States will not reduce their arsenals. That being so, China argues that a “No First Use” policy would be the most realistic way to reduce nuclear threats.

He said there are two myths about China’s nuclear policy: first that they don’t want to talk about it and second that the US needs to be prepared for a nuclear conflict against the combined forces of China, Russia and North Korea. That American “Nuclear Employment Guidance” he regarded as “completely ridiculous”.

He thinks strategic stability would be achieved by a “trust and verify” policy for Cyber, AI and Outer Space as well as nuclear weapons. A No First Use pledge would allow a state to take the moral high ground without limiting its capacity for retaliation And the policies of America, France and Britain are not far from China’s as things stand: America would only consider using nuclear weapons “in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States or its allies and partners”; the UK “in extreme circumstances of self-defence, including the defence of NATO allies” and France would adhere to a policy of “strict sufficiency”.

Among the UN’s P5 countries he sees Russia posing the greatest challenge because deterrence seemed to be working: faced with Putin’s nuclear-use threats the US imposed strict limits on Ukraine’s use of American weapons. But it would be suicidal for North Korea to attack US partners (South Korea, the Philippines and Japan) given the fallout that would impact the region including itself.

Zhou Bo suggests a two-track approach. In Europe NATO could make a unilateral No First Use pledge against Russia as a gesture of goodwill. And in exchange for Russia adopting a No First Use policy they could pledge no further expansion of their alliance. At present only Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia and Ukraine are on the waiting list and their entry into NATO would bring more trouble than benefit anyway. In Asia Russia and China already have a mutual No First Use agreement. The US and China could have the same arrangement and thereby de-escalate potential conflicts with US allies in the region.

History suggests that mutual diplomatic agreements can work – for example Non-targeting, a symbolic sign of goodwill. In 2000 all the P5 countries agreed not to target weapons on one another. Non-targeting is not verifiable but he thinks that it could be the next step beyond a No First Use commitment.

To those who object that China’s No First Use promotion is a diplomatic ploy he responds why can’t everyone adopt that ploy? It would be morally binding because it is clearly verifiable. And if we are all agreed that a nuclear war cannot be won why can’t we all pledge No First Use?

Listen to Pugwash Zhou Bo’s Pugwash webinar here