China's N-potenial worrying neighbours: US

Asserting that America's cooperation with Russia and China is key to the global nuclear security, the US on Tuesday said Beijing's modernisation of its military as well as its nuclear warhead capabilities has emerged as major concern to its Asian neighbours.

"The United States and Chinas Asian neighbours remain concerned about the pace and scope of Chinas current military modernisation efforts, including its quantitative and qualitative modernisation of its nuclear capabilities," the Obama administration said in its Nuclear Posture Review report released by it on Tuesday.

"Chinas nuclear arsenal remains much smaller than the arsenals of Russia and the United States.

But the lack of transparency surrounding its programmes their pace and scope as well as the strategy and doctrine guiding them raises questions about Chinas future strategic intentions, it said.

The report said the United States and China are increasingly interdependent and their shared responsibilities for addressing global security threats, such as WMD proliferation and terrorism, are growing.

"The United States welcomes a strong, prosperous, and successful China that plays a greater global role in supporting international rules, norms, and institutions," it added.

The US said Russia remains America's only peer in the area of nuclear weapons capabilities. But the nature of the US-Russia strategic and political relationship has changed fundamentally since the days of the Cold War, it added.

"Policy differences continue to arise between the two countries, and Russia continues to modernise its still formidable nuclear forces.

"But Russia and the US have increased their cooperation in areas of shared interest, including preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. And the prospects for military confrontation have declined dramatically in recent decades," the report said.

It said while the US and Russia have reduced deployed nuclear weapons by about 75 percent since the end of the Cold War, "each still retains more nuclear weapons than necessary for stable deterrence".