Gregory Kulacki

China project manager and senior analyst

Author image
Dr. Kulacki received his Ph.D. In Government and Politics from the University of Maryland in 1994. He was the China Director for the Council on International Educational Exchange, an Associate Professor at Green Mountain College and the Director of External Stdies at Pitzer College. He joined UCS in 2002. His research focuses on China’s nuclear arms control policy and US extended nuclear deterrence policy in East Asia, where Gregory has lived and worked for the better part of the last thirty years. Areas of expertise: Chinese nuclear weapons policy, China’s space program, cross-cultural communication. Gregory also blogs on the Equation.

Subscribe to Gregory's posts

Gregory's Latest Posts

Trump Opens Door to Renegotiating Controversial Okinawa Base Deal

June 27, 2019 10:40 AM EDT

The Okinawa dugong will be evicted from its island home if the deal on a new military base struck by President Obama proceeds as planned. President Trump suggested he wants to renegotiate it.

Bloomberg News reported that President Trump “regards Japan’s repeated efforts to move a large military base in Okinawa as sort of a land grab and has raised the idea of seeking financial compensation.” The New York real estate mogul said the land the United States military is vacating “could be worth about $10 billion.” He feels it belongs to the United States. It doesn’t.

But that’s exactly how the US military feels about its bases in Okinawa. These sentiments are rooted in the brutal battle to take the island at the end of World War II that cost 12,520 American lives. The US military wanted to keep it indefinitely. Japanese public protests led the government in Tokyo to negotiate the return of Okinawa to Japan in 1972. Read more >

Bookmark and Share

China’s Counterproductive Response on New START

May 7, 2019 8:24 PM EDT

May 6th, 2019: The Chinese Foreign Ministry dismisses the possibility of entering into strategic arms limitation talks with the United States and Russia

Last month Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the Trump administration wanted China to participate in discussions on extending the New START Treaty, which places limits on the size of the nuclear arsenals of the countries who sign it. The current treaty, which expires in 2020, is a bilateral agreement between the United States and Russia. Pompeo said the administration wants to broaden participation in the treaty to include China.

When asked at a recent press conference, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said his government “will not participate in any negotiation for a trilateral nuclear disarmament agreement.” That’s unfortunate. It’s also counterproductive. China lost an opportunity to educate Americans, and the rest of the world, about its comparatively reserved nuclear weapons policies. It lost an opportunity to be an international leader on nuclear disarmament and to achieve numerical parity with the United States and Russia. And, if the ministry’s own assumptions about the disingenuous motives of Trump administration officials are correct, it may have helped Trump pin the blame for failed negotiations between Russia and the United States on China. Read more >

Bookmark and Share

Hopes for Nuclear Disarmament from Tokyo

April 27, 2019 10:25 PM EDT

April 23, 2019: UN Undersecretary General Izumi Nakamitsu discusses disarmament at the United Nations University in Tokyo.

The so-called “great powers” are not so great when it comes to nuclear disarmament. Forty-nine years ago they entered into a legally binding commitment, known as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to “pursue negotiations in good faith … on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” It’s hard to argue, though the great powers try to do so, that spending trillions to maintain and modernize their nuclear arsenals is an act of good faith. Read more >

Bookmark and Share

Pompeo Opens the Door to Deep US Nuclear Cuts (Or Large Chinese Increases)

April 22, 2019 8:11 AM EDT

April 10, 2019: Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley questions Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about new nuclear arms control negotiations with China.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the Trump administration wants China to join negotiations on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). The treaty, which caps the number of deployed US and Russian nuclear warheads at 1550 each, is scheduled to expire in 2021.

China has a no first use policy and is believed to store its warheads separately from its missiles. Under the definition of the current treaty, China would therefore have zero deployed weapons. Read more >

Bookmark and Share

Nuclear Weapons in the Reiwa Era

April 11, 2019 10:21 AM EDT

Japan will soon have a new emperor and a new dynastic name to mark the traditional Japanese calender: Reiwa (令和). Interminable commentary on the significance of the name is just beginning, but in the end it will be defined not by words but by deeds. Read More

Bookmark and Share