Abstract: This article analyzes China’s use of issue-linkage strategies in its approach to nuclear proliferation. It highlights that China has used its ties to nuclear proliferators as a bargaining chip vis-a-vis the United States. The United States is dependent on Chinese cooperation to secure nonproliferation objectives such as a non-nuclear Iran, and China has used this dependency to extract side-payments for its cooperation. Moreover, Beijing has used non-cooperation on nuclear proliferation as retaliation when the US has hurt its interests in unrelated policy areas, such as through arms sales to Taiwan. In contrast with past studies, the article claims that China’s approach to nonproliferation remains partly transactional to this day.
