‘Daunting, grim’: Deputy PM’s warning on China’s nuclear goals

China’s nuclear ambitions and military buildup present a ‘grim’ and ‘daunting’ challenge, Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister has declared.

Beijing’s nuclear ambitions and Chinese military build up create daunting and grim challenges across the Asia-Pacific, Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister has warned.

Defence Minister Richard Marles used a speech at a summit in Singapore to reiterate alarm bells over Chinese and Russian nuclear weapons.

“China’s decision to pursue rapid nuclear modernisation and expansion, which aims in part to reach parity with or surpass the United States, is another reason the future of strategic arms control must be revitalised,” Mr Marles said in a speech on Saturday.

Richard Marles says Cold War era arms controls are now inadequate. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

“And that is a difficult and daunting project.

“We also have to counter the grim, potentially imminent, possibility of another wave of global nuclear proliferation as states seek security in a new age of imperial ambition.”

Mr Marles made the speech at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Shangri-La Dialogue conference in Singapore on Saturday.

The annual conference attracts defence ministers, senior military and security officials and diplomats from across the Asia Pacific; it is the pre-eminent regional security forum.

China now has the world’s largest standing army, with about two million active soldiers. Picture: AFP / China OUT

Beijing has not sent its National Defence Minister Dong Jun, instead sending a lower-level academic delegation. Last year’s forum resulted in a meeting between Mr Dong and then-US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

In his speech on Saturday, while acknowledging the US as a nuclear superpower, Mr Marles said arms controls needed to be strengthened.

“Russia suspended its participation in the last remaining binding bilateral arms control treaty between the United States and Russia in 2023,” he said.

China's Defence Minister Dong Jun, speaking at the 2024 summit, skipped this year’s edition. Picture: Nhac Nguyen / AFP

“This leaves no legally binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the two largest nuclear powers for the first time since 1972.

“New technologies like cyber, the weaponisation of space, and the ability to integrate nuclear weapons with autonomous systems means traditional arms control frameworks are being surpassed without any established method of control to supplement them.”

Originally published as ‘Daunting, grim’: Deputy PM’s warning on China’s nuclear goals