Nuclear Issues Between China And The United States: A History Review And Prospect

Nuclear issues are an important factor affecting Sino-U.S. relations, and at the same time, the situation of this relation affected the resolving of these nuclear related issues between the two countries. This article is a try to study this interaction relation.There are four chapters in this article. The first chapter expounds the nuclear monopoly policy implemented by the U.S. government in the early period after the Second World War. In this period, the United States adopted a hostile attitude and a policy of containment to the newborn regime of the People's Republic of China, and blackmailed China for several times by threatening to use nuclear weapons against China. To safeguard national security, China developed its own nuclear weapons, which stirred strong reaction from America, deteriorating the already very tense relation between the two nations. The second chapter summarizes the two nations' positions on multilateral and bilateral nuclear issues and their struggle on these issues. Since China successfully exploded its first nuclear bomb in 1960s, nuclear proliferation from China to other countries have became a major concern for the United States and a series of struggles on this issue followed. Later, due to changes in China's attitude toward nuclear proliferation and changes in overall international environment, China and the United States began preliminary cooperation in nuclear related issues. But the American government still had doubts on China's commitment to nuclear nonproliferation, and this "disharmonious note" still existed even after the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between the two countries. So Sino-U.S. relations didn't develop very smoothly. The third chapter focuses on the struggle and cooperation between China and the United States on nuclear related issues. After the end of the Cold War, international situation was very unfavorable to the development of Sino-U.S. relations and the United States put pressure on China in many areas in hope of changing China. But after several rounds of confrontation, the U.S. government realized that it is not wise to be an enemy of China. Both nations will benefit from cooperation and lose from confrontation, and this is also true in dealingwith nuclear related issues. So they began to cooperate on some nuclear issues, such as counter-proliferation of nuclear weapons and peaceful use of nuclear energy. The fourth chapter gives a whole picture of the struggles and cooperation between China and the United States on nuclear related issues, such as the origin of nuclear issues, their differences in positions, struggle and preliminary cooperation on nuclear related issues in the 1970s and 1980s, the intertwining of struggle and cooperation in the 1990s, and summarizes the law of interaction between Sino-U.S. relations and nuclear issues. This chapter also puts forward the prospects of Sino-U.S. relations in the 21st century and the author gives her opinions on the future development of this relation.