Conflict potential of american-chinese relations: prospects of the use of nuclear weapons

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to analyze the conflict potential of US-China relations against the background of China's buildup of military power, including nuclear weapons. The article analyzes the official provisions of the American nuclear doctrine, the views of representatives of the political and expert community on the prospects of a nuclear conflict with the participation of the United States at the present stage, and the parallels between them. Special attention is paid to the scenarios of possible conflicts between the United States and China as a growing force capable of influencing the interests of the United States not only in the Asia-Pacific region (APR), but also in other regions of the world. The dynamics of changes in China's nuclear and non-nuclear arsenals and their possible roles in the transforming architecture of the non-proliferation regimes of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) are considered. The instability of the nuclear disarmament process and the fragility of international legal barriers to new technological factors are determined. The processes of preparation of the possible use of nuclear weapons by Beijing during the aggravation of the longest-running territorial dispute over Taiwan are highlighted, justifying this problem by the fact that it directly affects the issue of state sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity of the PRC, the Taiwan problem occupies the highest place in the hierarchy of China's national interests and belongs to the so-called "core interests" of China, which Beijing will defend at any cost and concessions on which are fundamentally impossible. It is revealed that the development of promising missile weapons may become a priority direction of US military policy in the context of the US-China confrontation in Southeast Asia in general, and, in particular, with China. It has been determined that due to these trends, the work of lobby groups in the United States is intensifying, promoting the development of new long-range missile weapons. The thesis that US-China relations have a potential risk of using nuclear weapons (NW), which are considered by American researchers as a sobering tool, has been developed.