China warned on Tuesday it would ‘never accept any form of blackmail’ after US President Donald Trump said his decision to withdraw from a nuclear pact with Russia was also linked to Beijing’s arsenal.
China is not a signatory to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which the United States signed with the then-Soviet Union in the 1980s, but Trump said Monday that Beijing should be included in the accord.
The landmark treaty was signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev and led to nearly 2,700 short- and medium-range missiles being eliminated.