China forwarded proposals on Thursday in an attempt to break the current stalemate on international nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.

"Firstly, a secured international environment and strategic stability is the foundation," Hu Xiaodi, ambassador on disarmament affairs, told a plenary meeting of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland.

Hu stressed that efforts to prevent an arms race in outer space and those on nuclear disarmament go hand in hand.

"In this perspective, it is of crucial importance for nuclear disarmament that a missile defense system undermining strategic stability should not be developed, and that no weapons should be deployed in outer space," he said.

Secondly, efforts on nuclear disarmament and those to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons are complimentary, said Hu.

"Nuclear disarmament should be a just and reasonable process of gradual reduction," he said.

"Countries with the biggest nuclear arsenals bear special responsibility for nuclear disarmament and should take the lead in drastically reducing them."

Hu also listed some practical intermediate measures: states with nuclear weapons should reduce their role in national security policies, and honor their commitment not to target them against any country; to withdraw all nuclear weapons deployed outside their own territories; to abandon the policy and practice of a "nuclear umbrella" and "nuclear sharing"; and not to develop easy-to-use low-yield nuclear weapons.

He said the implementation of such measures would be a supplement to and improvement on the multilateral nuclear disarmament process and was conducive to increasing trust among countries.

Lastly, the establishment of an ad hoc committee on nuclear disarmament is essential, Hu said.

(Xinhua News Agency June 24, 2005)