Prospects for the hotspots of the international arms control situation in 2022

　　In 2021, the COVID-19 epidemic will continue to ravage the world, relations between major powers will face new adjustments and new challenges, new technological revolutions are poised to take off, and regional hotspots will emerge one after another. Aspect.
　　The United States stirs up the international arms control situation. With its nuclear arsenal and military strength, the United States exerts greater influence on the trend of international arms control. Biden has shown a somewhat different arms control posture from his predecessor Trump since he took office. In January 2021, the United States and Russia reached an agreement on the extension of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The fate of the arms control treaty is relieved. However, from the perspective of the relationship between major powers in general, the great power competition and security confrontation provoked by the United States are not conducive to the establishment of a dialogue and consultation mechanism among major powers in the future. The confrontational and competitive posture of the United States has damaged the mutual trust among countries and damaged the global strategy. Safety and stability. Relative to Trump, Biden’s somewhat positive arms control posture may be just a manifestation of his political actions. In recent years, the United States has been in constant conflict with other major powers in the fields of geopolitics, regional security, and strategic security, and all kinds of conflicts are intertwined. Therefore, the current pattern of intensified competition among great powers will not fundamentally change, and the future trend of the world arms control pattern will remain unchanged. in the midst of negative uncertainty.
　　New technologies are in urgent need of the introduction of control rules. Artificial intelligence technology is developing rapidly. Countries such as the United States and Russia have issued strategic policies on the military application of artificial intelligence technology. In June 2021, the U.S. Department of Defense took the lead in launching the ethical principles of artificial intelligence military application, seeking to shape the international norms dominated by the United States. The “commanding heights” of outer space have also become the main battlefield for major powers to compete. The Biden administration has continued the relevant policies of the Trump era and continued to promote the construction of the US space force. Affected by this, US allies have established space military forces one after another. The momentum is difficult to ease in the short term. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty is no longer sufficient to deal with the current situation of rapid and complicated development of outer space technology, and new rules for the management and control of outer space behavior need to be negotiated by all countries. In addition, hypersonic weapons are obviously the “stars” that will attract the attention of various countries in 2021. The United States and Russia are catching up with each other in this field, and the United States is hyping China’s hypersonic weapons tests, shaping the so-called threat situation. It is foreseeable that in the new year, the topic of hypersonic weapons will continue to be hot, and hypersonic offensive and defensive capabilities will become the main focus of military powers.
　　The prospect of regional nuclear proliferation is complicated. Regional nuclear proliferation and the resulting disturbed regional security situation are still of great concern. The Iranian nuclear issue is at a critical stage. In February 2021, Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei said that Iran would not return to the Iran nuclear deal until the U.S. lifted sanctions, while Biden said that the U.S. would not lift sanctions first, and the tension between the U.S. and Iran is getting worse . In June 2021, the hardline Leahy was elected as the new president of Iran, and then the negotiations between the United States and Iran around the Iran nuclear deal also stalled. Iran’s new government said that the United States must return to the Iran nuclear deal and fully implement it, lift all sanctions against Iran, and at the same time, Iran’s missile program and regional policies cannot tolerate negotiation. Iran’s attitude is tough, and the United States has not relaxed its pressure on Iran. The differences between the United States and Iran will be more difficult to bridge in the future. In April 2021, the Biden administration stated that it would promote the resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue in an “adjusted and pragmatic way”. The adjustment of Biden’s policy does not mean that the United States and North Korea can slow down on the nuclear issue, and the United States remains high profile. Declaring denuclearization as the ultimate goal, North Korea continues to strengthen its strategic capabilities. North Korea elaborated on nuclear capacity building at the Eighth Congress of the Workers’ Party in January 2021. In the past year, North Korea’s new long-range missiles and hypersonic missiles have been continuously unveiled, and the United States has found it difficult to let go of its sanctions and high-handed policies against North Korea. Given the intensified competition between China and the US, the deterioration of US-Russian relations, and the complex and ever-changing regional situation, there are still challenges in coordinating the participation of various parties in the region in the dialogue on the North Korean nuclear issue.
　　Just as the international community is actively responding to regional nuclear proliferation issues, in September 2021, Australia’s announcement that it would build nuclear submarines with the assistance of the United States and the United Kingdom caused a thousand waves. Serious impact on the international nuclear non-proliferation regime. The double-standard move of the United States has cast a negative note on the efforts of the international community for nuclear non-proliferation.
　　The international arms control situation will present more complexities and uncertainties in the future, and the focus on strategic offensive and defensive technical capabilities will become as important as the number of nuclear weapons; behavioral norms and new technologies such as outer space, cyber, and artificial intelligence will become more important. Control and regulation will become a new hotspot; the regional nuclear proliferation issue requires relevant countries to adopt more cooperative stances rather than confrontation. The key is that the above behaviors do not require cooperation, dialogue and communication between countries, and the current great power competition provoked by the United States brings What is missing is the loss of trust and the intensification of confrontation. On November 4, 2021, the Disarmament and International Security Committee of the 76th UN General Assembly voted to pass the draft resolution on “Promoting International Cooperation in the Field of Peaceful Use of International Security” submitted by China. Disarmament issues raise and facilitate the adoption of resolutions. Promoting a fair, just and reasonable theoretical system of arms control with Chinese characteristics is conducive to promoting a peaceful and stable international arms control pattern. While looking forward to the recovery of the international arms control situation in 2022, we also expect Chinese wisdom to play a greater role in the field of international arms control in the new year.