On March 13, EWI and International Peace Institute (IPI) convened an expert roundtable, Building a Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament: A Chinese perspective, in New York. The roundtable included presentations by five senior Chinese arms control specialists:

Li Genxin, Secretary General of the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association (CACDA);

Teng Jianqun, Deputy Secretary General of CACDA;

Senior Colonel Xu Weidi, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies, Chinese National Defense University;

Ouyang Liping, Senior Research Professor and Deputy Director of the Institute of Security and Strategic Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR); and

Fan Jishe, Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation Studies, Institute of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). 

Michael Levi, Director of the Program on Energy Security and Climate Change at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Steve Noerper, Senior Fellow at EWI, offered comments on the presentations to lead off the discussions. Warren Hoge, IPI Vice President and Director of External Relations, and Waheguru Pal Sidhu, EWI Vice President of Programs, chaired the event. 

New forms of threats by both states and non-state actors are challenging the stability of the nonproliferation regime, but the main instruments of that regime are eroding. Greater threats challenging the regime’s foundations include:

• tests of nuclear devices,
• the rise of non-state actors and risks of nuclear terrorism,
• illicit smuggling in fissile materials,
• states suspected of pursuing weapons programs under the auspices of peaceful nuclear energy, and
• the questionable progress of states in nuclear disarmament.