The News
China, Russia, and Iran hit out at Western sanctions Friday as they held talks in Beijing over Tehran’s nuclear program and called for multinational negotiations to restart.
Officials from the three nations emphasized “the necessity of terminating all unlawful unilateral sanctions,” The Associated Press reported.
US President Donald Trump has voiced openness to nuclear talks even as he resumes a “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran, which is fast expanding its uranium reserves.
The once-taboo issue of nuclear armament is increasingly a common subject among global policymakers: This week, Warsaw urged Washington to consider placing nuclear weapons in Poland, while calls are mounting in Tokyo for Japan to develop its own nuclear deterrent, remarks that would previously have ended political careers.
SIGNALS
China uses Iran nuclear issue as opportunity to flex diplomatic muscle
China is using Iran’s nuclear issue as an opportunity to flex its diplomatic influence, analysts say. Beijing’s involvement in the nuclear talks comes as the country has sought to play a bigger role in Middle Eastern affairs as it seeks to present itself as an “alternative global leader to the US,” CNN reported, especially amid US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy shakeup. And by including both Russia and Iran in the discussions, Beijing can “highlight the significance of non-Western approaches to resolving global challenges,” an analyst told CNN.
Withdrawal of US security guarantees in Europe threatens global nuclear proliferation
US President Donald Trump’s pivot toward Russia is a “paradigmatic shift” in foreign policy that threatens to provoke “rampant nuclear proliferation,” two experts argued in Foreign Policy. For decades, US security guarantees in Europe and Asia have acted as a nuclear deterrent, but Trump’s withdrawal of those guarantees has shattered “the credibility of the US nuclear umbrella,” they wrote. Such global insecurity could likely encourage countries like South Korea, Japan, and Saudi Arabia, along with several European nations, to rapidly develop their own nuclear arsenals, raising concerns of potential nuclear accidents and inadvertent escalations.