On Obama Administration’s Nuclear Nonproliferation Policies

　　Associate Professor, College of Public Administration, Zhejiang University

　　Abstract: After United States President Barack Obama came into office, US nuclear nonproliferation policies underwent radical transformations. These shifts are in part due to the review by Obama’s administration on the nuclear nonproliferation policies of its predecessor, and in part owing to the efforts at improving the US international image and the strategic need to safeguard US leadership in world affairs. Most importantly, however, it is deemed a means to exert more pressures on North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs. Obama’s changes to US nuclear nonproliferation policies are indeed helpful at putting international nuclear arms control efforts back on track. To China, US’s new policy direction will bring forth multiple effectsboth positive as well as negative ones. Sino-US cooperation on nuclear nonproliferation will be carried over from the Bush era, while China will benefit from the overall improvement in international security environment; however, China will need to be wary of the possible constrains to its rise, threats to its “minimal deterrence” nuclear capacity, a marginalization of its role in the Six-party Talks, as well as the uncertainties that Obama’s new nuclear nonproliferation initiatives can effect on regional stability so essential to China’s peaceful development.