Russia and China scold the United States over ‘Golden Dome’ plans
MOSCOW, May 20 (Reuters) – Russia and China said on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans for a Golden Dome missile defense shield threaten strategic stability and that Washington was irresponsible in not working on a replacement for a landmark nuclear deal.
The rebuke was issued in a joint statement after children waved Chinese and Russian flags after President Xi Jinping greeted President Vladimir Putin with a guard of honor and gun salute at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
Golden Dome envisions the expansion of ground-based defenses such as interceptor missiles, sensors, and command-and-control systems, as well as the addition of space-based elements to detect, track, and potentially destroy threats from orbit. These include advanced satellite networks and orbiting weapons.
“The Parties believe that the US ‘Golden Dome’ project, which aims to create an unrestricted, multi-level, multi-spherical and global missile defense system to destroy all types of missiles, including all types of ‘co-adversary’ missiles, at all stages of their flight and before launch, poses a clear threat to strategic stability,” the parties said. he said.
“These plans are in complete contradiction with the basic principle of maintaining strategic stability, which requires the interconnection of strategic offensive and strategic defensive weapons.”
China and Russia also said they regretted the United States’ “irresponsible policy” that allowed the 2010 New START arms control treaty to expire without being renewed earlier this year.
Russia said it supports China’s position not to participate in US-Russia nuclear arms control talks. U.S. critics of the New Start extension say the United States should free itself from controls to account for China’s rapid nuclear buildup.
Russia and China also said some unidentified nuclear powers are planning to forward-deploy land-based medium- and short-range missiles that pose a threat to other states.
They said that attempts by some states to launch “pre-emptive or pre-emptive missile strikes to decapitate and disarm the enemy are highly destabilizing and pose a strategic threat.”
Russia on Wednesday showed images of what it said were soldiers delivering nuclear warheads to mobile Iskander-M missile launch systems, loading them and transporting them to launch sites as part of a major nuclear exercise in Russia and Belarus.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Philippa Fletcher)
