The future of nuclear weapons: A Chinese perspective
- Amer-China Partners, Ltd., Beijing (China)
China understands very well the importance of nuclear weapons because it is the only country in the world that was seriously threatened with nuclear attacks by the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s and the 1970s, respectively. The events of the late 1980s and early 1990s in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have fundamentally rocked the world. Most Eastern European countries have cast away their socialist regimes and are accepting Western-type democracy and market economies. Communist parties have been banned and old bureaucracies have been dismantled. The Warsaw Pact, which had existed as a symbol and unified military institution of the Eastern bloc, was quietly dissolved. The Soviet Union, the prime player of the Cold War and America`s main rival, suddenly disintegrated into fifteen independent states and no longer is a heavy-weight player in the world political arena. These developments have shaken the foundations of nuclear diplomacy and politics that have existed for forty years. The abrupt ending of the Cold War has left many questions about nuclear weapons that will not go away as easily as the war. What role, if any, will nuclear weapons play in this decade and early in the next century? Will nuclear weapons still be important in maintaining world peace as they have been during the Cold War ear? Or will nuclear weapons be a destabilizing factor in the new world order? 6 refs.
- OSTI ID:
- 105176
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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