Working Paper Submitted by China

2000 Substantive Session of

the United Nations

Disarmament Commission

The complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons and the realization of a nuclear-weapon-free world will remove forever the threat of nuclear weapons facing mankind, hence greatly enhancing international peace and security. To achieve such a goal, the international community should first make the following efforts:

First, to establish a new security concept based on mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and cooperation. The nuclear disarmament process is intertwined with the international security situation. A peaceful, secure, stable international environment based on mutual trust is essential for the advancement of the nuclear disarmament process.

Second, to maintain the global strategic balance and stability which constitute the basis and precondition for progress in the nuclear disarmament process. The states concerned should strictly abide by the existing arms control treaties underpinning the global strategic balance and stability. They should stop the development, deployment and proliferation of advanced missile defense systems and outer space weapons, which will jeopardize the nuclear disarmament process and even trigger a new round of nuclear arms race.

Third, any nuclear disarmament measures should follow the principle of undiminished security for all states.

To eliminate nuclear weapons, the international community may take the following concrete steps:

1. The nuclear-weapon States possessing the largest nuclear arsenals bear special responsibility for nuclear disarmament. They should continue to reduce drastically their respective nuclear arsenals on the principle of irreversibility.

2. All the nuclear-weapon States should renounce the nuclear deterrence policy based on the first use of nuclear weapons, undertake unconditionally not to be the first to use nuclear weapons and conclude an international legal instrument to such effect.

3. All the nuclear-weapon States should commit themselves unconditionally not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon States or nuclear-weapon-free zones, and a relevant international legal instrument should be concluded.

4. The nuclear-weapon States concerned should undertake to withdraw all the nuclear weapons deployed outside their territories.

5. All the nuclear-weapon States should support the efforts to establish nuclear-weapon-free zones, respect the status of those zones and assume the relevant obligations.

6. The nuclear-weapon States and the non-nuclear-weapon States concerned should forego the "nuclear umbrella" policy and the practice of "nuclear sharing".

7. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) should be observed in full and in good faith. Those countries which have not yet acceded to the NPT should do so without delay and without conditions, so as to make the treaty truly universal.

8. The states which have not yet signed and ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) should do so as soon as possible, so as to promote the early entry into force of the CTBT according to the treaty provisions.

9. A universal and verifiable fissile material cut-off treaty (FMCT) should be negotiated and concluded.

10. On the basis of the above-mentioned efforts, a convention on the complete prohibition of nuclear weapons should be negotiated and concluded.