Participants at the disarmament verification workshop organized by the Program on Science and Global Security (SGS) and the Project on Verification Technologies and Science (PVTS) of the China Academy of Engineering Physics, Beijing, June 15–16, 2015.
Participants at the disarmament verification workshop organized by the Program on Science and Global Security (SGS) and the Project on Verification Technologies and Science (PVTS) of the China Academy of Engineering Physics, Beijing, June 15–16, 2015.

July 01, 2023

In June 2023, SGS wrapped up two initiatives on deepening understanding of US-China relations with a focus on nuclear weapon policies. Both efforts were made possible by collaboration with Tong Zhao, a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Visiting Researcher at SGS (2022-23).

Beginning in 2019, fraying U.S.-China official relations and an associated escalation in strategic and nuclear competition undermined long-standing Track II nuclear dialogues, among US and Chinese nuclear and arms control experts. To counter this, in July 2020 SGS Co-Director Zia Mian together with Li Bin, a Professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing (and a former SGS postdoc) launched the Princeton-Tsinghua Arms Control Seminars. Tong Zhao (a former student of Li Bin) contributed to the seminar organization.

In the summer of 2021, Zhao Rong, Professor at Wuhan University, succeeded Li Bin, leading to the renaming of the series as the Princeton-Tsinghua-Wuhan Arms Control Seminars. Wu Riqiang, then Associate Professor at Renmin University, also joined the organizing team. Participants in these seminars included members from leading universities, think tanks, military research institutes, and other NGOs in the U.S. and China, with a focus on nuclear weapons and strategic arms control policies. Along with scholars and policy professionals, former senior officials from both countries, as well as next-generation scholars, took part.

The Track II dialogue aimed to facilitate technical and policy conversations on arms control, nonproliferation, strategic stability, and disarmament so as to diminish misperceptions and misunderstandings and foster cooperative security and global peace. It held 21 meetings between July 2020 and July 2023. A list of the seminar topics is available here.

In 2023 launched the China Study Group, a reading and discussion collective, as its second initiative responding to China's growing significance in the US and global policy landscape and especially nuclear policies. Led by SGS Visiting Researcher Tong Zhao, this group aimed to deepen understanding at SGS and in other Princeton researchers of nuclear China. Between February and June 2023, the China Study Group held six sessions, which covered China’s history, national identity, domestic politics, and international relations, all of which frame its approach to nuclear weapon strategy and policies. The reading list and list of meeting themes are available here.