US again calls for arms control talks with China amid concern over expanding nuclear arsenal
- Senior official Thomas Countryman says there are no concrete plans but the issue was raised during last month’s summit between Xi and Biden
- His remarks came after another State Department official said he was ‘optimistic’ the two countries could launch the process soon
Thomas Countryman, senior adviser to the State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, made the remarks in a briefing on Friday.
It came after a senior State Department official on Thursday said he was “optimistic” the two countries could launch the process soon, according to Reuters. “But I can’t tell you exactly when or at what level,” he told reporters in Geneva.
“We have long believed that it is important that the US and the People’s Republic have discussions about strategic stability, about the reduction of risk of incidents, about confidence-building measures. These are the kind of discussions that great powers need to have with each other,” he said.
“I know that President Xi and President Biden touched on this in their recent conversation, but I have no news for you about the time or the format or the subject.”
