Chinese diplomat reiterates China's firm will to defend sovereignty

The international community should take the Tenth NPT Review Conferenceas an opportunity to practice genuine multilateralism, resolutely resist the Cold War mentality and camp confrontation, and uphold the concept of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable global security, and conduct in-depth discussions on how to advance the process of international nuclear disarmament, said Li.

Li said the United States and Russia, which have the largest nuclear arsenals, "should earnestly fulfill their special and priority historical responsibility for nuclear disarmament, and further substantially reduce their nuclear arsenals in a verifiable, irreversible and legally binding manner, so as to create the conditions for nuclear disarmament."

The United States should abandon the deployment of a global missile defense system, not seek to deploy land-based intermediate-range missiles missiles in the Asia-Pacific and Europe, abolish the nuclear umbrella and nuclear sharing policies, and withdraw all nuclear weapons deployed abroad to its own country, the diplomat said, add that the international community should jointly oppose relevant countries' duplication of NATO's "nuclear-sharing" deployment in the Asia-Pacific.

Li said the purpose of China's development of nuclear weapons is to "deter the enemy from using nuclear weapons against China, and to resolutely counterattack the enemy when the country is attacked by nuclear weapons."

"China has actively advocated the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons since the first day it possessed nuclear weapons," said Li. "China has made a clear commitment not to be the first to use nuclear weapons at any time and under any circumstances, and not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states and nuclear weapon-free zones."

"China always keeps its nuclear capability at the minimum level required for safeguarding national security," said Li. "China has never compared its investment, quantity and scale in its nuclear weapons with other countries, and will not participate in any form of arms race," he said.