China's defense ministry said that the Pentagon's nuclear posture review released on Friday is an improper speculation toward China's development intent, and exaggerates China's nuclear power threat.
"China has been holding a restrained attitude in nuclear weapons development and keeping its nuclear power at its lowest level based on national security needs," Ministry of National Defense spokesman Ren Guoqiang said on Sunday.
The nuclear posture review should correctly view the trend of the times. Peace and development are the irreversible trend, and the US, as the country with the world's largest nuclear stockpile, should follow the trend, not pursue another direction, Ren said.
"We hope the US abandons its Cold War mentality and takes special and primary responsibility in nuclear disarmament," he said,
"The US should correctly understand China's strategic intent and objectively view its national defense and military construction to work with China to make the two armies the stable factors in Sino-US ties and to maintain world and regional peace, stability and prosperity." Ren noted.
"China firmly pursues a peaceful development and a national defense policy defensive in nature. China always observes that stance," Ren said.
"China remains firmly committed to the policy of no first use of nuclear weapons under any circumstance. It unconditionally does not use or threaten the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states or nuclear weapon-free zones," Ren reaffirmed.
The US Defense Department on Friday released its 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, saying China's "lack of transparency regarding the scope and scale of its nuclear modernization program raises questions on its future intent."
