China has discontinued nuclear weapons talks with the US due to the US selling arms to Taiwan, China announces.
In November, the countries initiated talks on nuclear arms control to try to improve relations ahead of the summit between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping. Since then, no information about potential further talks has been made public. In January, a White House employee urged Beijing to respond to "some of our more concrete ideas on risk reduction."
However, China's Foreign Ministry now states that the US's arms sale to Taiwan "seriously undermines the political atmosphere for continued arms control talks between the two sides," and is discontinuing the talks.
China views the self-governing democratic Taiwan as part of its own territory, and has not ruled out the use of force to take control of the island nation.
