China and Russia issued a joint warning against President Donald Trump’s proposed Golden Dome missile defense system, arguing the plan threatens nuclear balance and undermines strategic stability between major powers.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Russia and China jointly criticized President Donald Trump’s proposed Golden Dome missile defense initiative on Wednesday, accusing the United States of destabilizing the global nuclear balance and abandoning longstanding arms-control principles.
The statement was released following a high-profile meeting in Beijing between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was welcomed at the Great Hall of the People with military honors, including an honor guard and ceremonial gun salute.
The rebuke centered on Trump’s proposed Golden Dome missile defense architecture, a multilayered system designed to expand U.S. capabilities to detect, track and intercept incoming missile threats using both terrestrial and space-based technologies.
The proposal includes expanded interceptor missile systems, enhanced sensors, advanced command-and-control infrastructure and orbital defense components intended to identify and potentially destroy missile threats during multiple phases of flight, including before launch.
In a joint statement, Moscow and Beijing argued the initiative would fundamentally alter strategic deterrence principles that have governed nuclear stability between major powers for decades.
“The parties believe that the U.S. ‘Golden Dome’ project, which aims to build an unlimited, multi-level, multi-sphere, and global missile defense system to destroy all types of missiles, including all types of ‘peer adversaries’ missiles, at all stages of their flight and before they are launched, poses an obvious threat to strategic stability,” the statement said.
Russia and China additionally argued that the proposal undermines the traditional relationship between offensive nuclear weapons and defensive missile systems.
“These plans completely contradict the key principle of maintaining strategic stability, which requires the interconnectedness of strategic offensive and strategic defensive weapons,” the statement continued.
The criticism also extended to U.S. nuclear arms policy more broadly.
Beijing and Moscow accused Washington of pursuing an “irresponsible policy” by allowing the 2010 New START nuclear arms treaty to expire earlier this year without negotiating a replacement framework.
The New START agreement had imposed limits on deployed strategic nuclear warheads and delivery systems between the United States and Russia.
Russia publicly endorsed China’s longstanding position rejecting participation in future trilateral nuclear arms talks involving Washington and Moscow.
American officials and defense analysts have increasingly argued that future arms-control agreements must account for China’s rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal and advanced missile development programs.
Critics of extending previous treaty limits have also argued the United States requires greater strategic flexibility to respond to both Russian and Chinese military modernization.
The joint statement further accused unnamed nuclear powers of planning deployments of intermediate-range and shorter-range missile systems near rival states.
Russian and Chinese officials warned that doctrines involving “preemptive” or “preventive” strikes intended to disable enemy command structures or nuclear forces create heightened risks of escalation.
They stated that efforts to develop systems capable of “decapitation” strikes or rapid disarmament operations are “highly destabilizing and pose a strategic threat.”
The diplomatic clash unfolded as Russia simultaneously conducted a major nuclear readiness exercise involving forces in both Russia and Belarus.
Russian state media released footage Wednesday that it claimed showed troops transporting nuclear warheads to mobile Iskander-M missile launch systems, loading the weapons and deploying the launchers to operational sites.
The Iskander-M system is a short-range ballistic missile platform capable of carrying conventional or nuclear payloads and has become a central component of Russia’s regional deterrence posture.
The latest confrontation highlights growing tensions between Washington, Moscow and Beijing over missile defense systems, nuclear modernization and military competition in space.
Trump’s Golden Dome proposal has emerged as one of the administration’s most ambitious defense initiatives, reflecting broader efforts to expand U.S. missile defense capabilities against advanced threats from rival nuclear powers.
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