China takes another concrete action to maintain global strategic stability: Global Times editorial

BEIJING, May 12, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Chinese President Xi Jinping returned to Beijing on Saturday evening after wrapping up a state visit to Russia and attending celebrations in Moscow marking the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union's Great Patriotic War. During the visit, China and Russia released a joint statement on global strategic stability, which emphasizes that states and their associations should not seek to ensure their own security at the expense of other states. This is the third time that China and Russia have issued a joint statement on global strategic stability, following those in 2016 and 2019. It fully demonstrates the importance China and Russia attach to this issue, as well as their responsibility as major countries to strive to maintain global strategic stability. 

Nuclear weapons are the "Sword of Damocles" hanging over mankind. Before they are completely banned and ultimately destroyed, strategic stability, especially nuclear strategic stability among nuclear-weapon states, is an important guarantee for world peace and security. The international community must place nuclear strategic stability at the core of global strategic stability. Another joint statement issued by China and Russia on global strategic stability will help promote consensus within the international community on global strategic stability, aid in jointly responding to various countercurrents that endanger global strategic stability, and support the maintenance of the international order based on international law and the international system with the UN at its core. 

"Not fighting a nuclear war" and "avoiding a vicious arms race" have become the consensus of the international community. ASEAN, the African Union, New Agenda Coalition and many non-nuclear weapon states have called on nuclear-weapon states to adopt a policy of not using nuclear weapons first. Today, strategic stability includes not only the avoidance of conflict and confrontation in the military sphere, but also mutual respect and equal treatment in politics; it encompasses not only stability in the nuclear field, but also stability in emerging fields such as outer space, cyberspace, and artificial intelligence. It is important to note that regional hotspots are emerging one after another, and relations between the involved nuclear-weapon states are tense.

At this historical juncture, China and Russia have once again issued a joint statement on global strategic stability to defend the post-WWII international order and the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter. This aims to implement the principle stated in the Joint Statement of the Leaders of the Five Nuclear-Weapon States on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races, which holds that "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought." By doing so, it seeks to effectively reduce the risks of nuclear war and nuclear conflict, eliminate the dangers of a malignant arms race, prevent irresponsible new forms of nuclear proliferation, and curb the spread of conflicts into emerging areas. In terms of injecting positive energy into the maintenance of global strategic stability, the international community can see that China and Russia are taking concrete actions.

In the joint statement, China and Russia proposed a series of specific and feasible suggestions. For example, the statement emphasizes that preventive steps to avert crises and conflicts should have priority over attempts to "manage" confrontation and its escalation. These points deserve serious attention from the international community. The statement also puts forward clear positions on preventing the weaponization of outer space, fully complying with the Biological Weapons Convention, and addressing the military application of AI technologies, thereby providing direction for improving global security governance in emerging fields.

In today's world, the fate of people is interconnected, and no country can remain insulated from the rest. Only by jointly upholding a multilateral system centered on the UN and maintaining the international order established since WWII can we achieve common security. As changes unseen in a century accelerate and international security faces turbulence, China and Russia, as victors of WWII, UN founding members, and permanent members of the UN Security Council, have already made and will continue to make unremitting efforts for global strategic stability. At the same time, building a comprehensive, integrated, and sustainable security framework globally also requires the joint efforts of the international community.

SOURCE Global Times