Na het eerste handelsoverleg met de USA onder Biden riepen Chinese haviken prompt op tot de productie van extra kernraketten door China.

Het aantreden van Joe Biden als president werd door Amerikaanse haviken met angst en beven tegemoet gezien, aangezien diens eerdere contacten met China hem mogelijk chantabel maakten. Desondanks begon Biden in februari met de benoeming van een China-havik als belangrijkste adviseur over China, en zette hij de anti-Huawei-politiek van de regering-Trump voort.

Afgezien van een diplomatieke botsing in Alaska en Chinees gekonkel ten opzichte van Amerikaanse bondgenoten in Zuid-Oost Azië bleef het relatief rustig. Wel ging de Chinese diplomatie nadrukkelijk los op Australië, ook in verband met de Oeigoeren. Amerikaanse pogingen met Beijing in gesprek te raken over wederzijdse bewapeningslimieten van kernraketten werden door China intussen voortdurend afgewimpeld.

In recent years the Trump administration had attempted to bring China into so-called trilateral arms control negotiations, which Beijing consistently balked at. Trump had considered landmark 20th century arms treaties with Russia to be “weak” due to not accounting for China’s rapidly advancing defense technology and arsenal.
For example, in summer of 2019 the US announced its formal withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia, citing that a “new, better” agreement was needed which will bring in China. Also of note is that the INF had prevented the US from deploying ground-based intermediate-range missiles in Asia. The New START nuclear arms control agreement had also reportedly been on the chopping block by the tail end of the Trump administration, but among Biden’s first major actions in office was to extend it by five years.
But it now appears that Biden agrees with Trump’s fundamental principal of the urgency to bring China to the nuclear negotiating table. Trump’s central rationale was articulated in one July 2020 statement as follows: “The president believes that it shouldn’t just be the U.S. and Russia… The days of unilateral American disarmament are over.”

Hoe men hier in China werkelijk naar kijkt zien we nu.

China’s hawkish state-run media Global Times said Beijing should increase its build-up of nuclear weapons after recent Sino-U.S.trade talks.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He held an online meeting on May 26, the first trade talks for both countries since U.S. President Joe Biden took office in January.

Na de handelsgesprekken tussen beide landen, kwam dit:

While the two sides failed to disclose any concrete details about the talks, Tai told Reuters before the online meeting that the United States faces “very large challenges” in its trade and economic ties with Beijing and that the Biden administration needs to pay attention across the board.
Several hours after Tai and Liu concluded their meeting, Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Global Times took to his WeChat account to say that China should be ready militarily in the face of “increasing strategic containment” by the United States.
Hu urged Beijing to “rapidly increase its number of nuclear warheads and long-distance, highly-viable strategic ballistic missiles DF-41.”

Want:

The ultimate goal, Hu explained, was for China to have enough nuclear ballistic missiles so that U.S. policymakers would “tremble” whenever they thought of having a “military confrontation with China.”

Wat de handel betreft lijkt er evenmin veel voortgang:

U.S.-based current affairs commentator Li Yanming, in an interview with the Chinese-language Epoch Times, said that he did not expect Beijing and Washington to hold any future discussions to end the trade war anytime soon.
As for Hu’s online remark, Li explained that it was nothing more than an empty threat because the United States possesses a lopsided military advantage over China.

Niet heel geruststellend allemaal, want ook de USA is al enige tijd doende haar arsenaal uit te breiden. Daarbij kijkt men ook nadrukkelijk naar de Chinese activiteiten in de ruimte.