Putin’s visit to China brings new cold war – and nuclear threat – ever closer

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Xi’s commitment to nuclear restraint despite Putin’s sabre-rattling is welcomed and it’s encouraging to note that the Xi-Putin joint statement affirms that “there can be no winners in a nuclear war and it should never be fought”.

While this is a reiteration of a commitment made by the five nuclear-weapon powers in January 2022, it was significant that Xi reminded his interlocutors in France that “China is the only country among the major nuclear-weapon states that is committed to no-first-use of nuclear weapons”.

Nuclear restraint and rectitude are not merely normative objectives for the global good, but ethical compulsions that will determine global survival. Xi’s resolve in this regard should be acknowledged. Even as geopolitical competition between the US and its allies against the China-Russia dyad intensifies, one earnestly hopes that major powers will not cross the red line into any form of nuclear confrontation – tactical or otherwise.

Commodore C. Uday Bhaskar is director of the Society for Policy Studies (SPS), an independent think tank based in New Delhi