Xi warns Putin not to use nukes in Ukraine

Nuclear weapons must not be used over Ukraine, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Friday, offering Beijing’s clearest response yet to Russia’s invasion of the former Soviet state, amid mounting concerns that the war might go nuclear.

“The international community should ... jointly oppose the use or threats to use nuclear weapons, advocate that nuclear weapons must not be used and nuclear wars must not be fought, in order to prevent a nuclear crisis in Eurasia,” Xi said during a meeting in Beijing with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, according to Chinese state news agency Xinhua.

Xinhua’s readout of the meeting did not target any country for criticism nor mention Russia.

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Xi’s statement repeated China’s pledge made in January - alongside nuclear-armed France, Russia, Britain and the United States - to use atomic weapons only for defensive purposes.

“A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought”, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, or the “P5”, had said in their joint statement.

China maintains a stated policy that it will not use nuclear weapons first and not threaten non-nuclear states with those weapons. But Western governments remain concerned because of a lack of transparency over the Chinese nuclear programme. Xi also told Scholz that China supported Europe’s important role in pushing for peace talks over Ukraine, and in creating a “balanced, effective and sustainable” European security framework, according to Xinhua.