China 'must be prepared to make the FIRST nuclear strike' in response to growing US presence in the region and AUKUS strategic partnership, senior diplomat declares

China must be ready to use nuclear weapons and should abandon its ‘no-first-use’ policy to push back against new alliances forming in the Pacific, a senior diplomat has said. Sha Zukang, the country’s former ambassador to the UN, told a summit of Chinese nuclear policy experts that it is time to ‘re- examine and fine-tune’ a long-standing commitment to only use nukes in retaliation as the US ‘builds new military alliances and as it increases its military presence in our neighbourhood.’ Beijing’s current policy – which has been in place since the 1960s – has given China the ‘moral high…