A New Translation – the Chinese Flowchart

The Nuclear Morality Flowchart is intended to enable ordinary citizens of actual or aspiring nuclear weapons states, to resolve for themselves the moral acceptability of possessing and deploying nuclear weapons as a deterrent. One objective therefore has been to make it available in the languages of all the relevant states.  Translation is not easy because the graphical method of presenting the questions depends on economy of words along with precise meaning, but thanks to some hard work by a professional in the field, we now have the flowchart and its supporting notes available in Chinese. Traditonal Chinese / Simplified Chinese

In some ways China appears to be the most reasonable of the nuclear weapons states, although recent efforts to maintain the credibility of deterrence in the face of western technical and numerical superiority may be moving them in a more dangerous direction. To the 122 UN member states that agreed the Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) 50 of which have already ratified the treaty, bringing it into legal force on 22nd January 2021, the failure to renounce the retention of means for indiscriminate slaughter of humanity on an apocalyptic scale is clearly unacceptable.

But there are some remedial factors in this dark picture. China was the last of the original P5 states to acquire nuclear weapons; its nuclear arsenal has been among the smallest; and alone among the nuclear weapons states, China declares a policy of No First Use.   The implacable opposition to the TPNW shown by the western allies has not been shared by China.  With its more pragmatic attitude China might have cooperated in development of the Treaty in any less aggressive time.

We hope that use of the Nuclear Morality Flowchart by citizens at all levels of involvement, can be some small help in developing an ethically-based policy that could lead China out of the nuclear nightmare.  Now that we have the Treaty as a practical way forward based in ethical and humanitarian principles, any such move could have a powerful leadership effect.