China announced this week its willingness to “take the lead” in signing the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, a move that comes while Beijing rapidly expands its nuclear arsenal.
The announcement, made by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, followed news that both China and Russia have agreed to become signatories to the decades-old Bangkok Treaty. The Bangkok Treaty, formally known as the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Treaty (SEANWFZ), is a comprehensive nuclear disarmament agreement that creates one of the world’s most extensive nuclear-free zones.
America has not signed the Bangkok Treaty due to two primary objections, both rooted in concerns over limiting U.S. military operations and strategic flexibility in Southeast Asia. The treaty protocol requires nuclear-armed states to give unequivocal “negative security assurances”, a binding promise never to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against treaty members. The U.S. opposes this requirement because it seeks to preserve strategic ambiguity in its nuclear doctrine.
Officials argue that such absolute assurances could conflict with alliance commitments, including defense treaties with the Philippines and Thailand, where the U.S. may need to retain the option of nuclear retaliation in response to chemical or biological attacks.
Additionally, U.S. nuclear strategy depends on the threat of nuclear use to deter not only nuclear but also large-scale conventional attacks. The treaty’s rigid language allows no exceptions, even in extreme scenarios, which Washington sees as a serious constraint on deterrence.
Past agreements have shown how security assurances can lead to unintended entanglements. A good example is the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which the U.S., UK, and Russia pledged security assurances to Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan in exchange for giving up their nuclear arsenals. These included commitments to respect sovereignty, avoid economic coercion, and respond to nuclear threats. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and again in 2022, those assurances triggered pressure for U.S. involvement.
If the United States signs the Bangkok Treaty protocol, comparable dynamics could unfold in Southeast Asia. For example, if China were to use military force against treaty parties such as the Philippines, Vietnam, or Malaysia, the U.S. could face strong pressure to intervene due to formal commitments made under the treaty. Similarly, in scenarios involving nuclear coercion, where China threatens to use nuclear weapons against ASEAN countries, the U.S. might feel obligated to respond, having extended security guarantees through the protocol.
Unlike the Budapest case, several ASEAN members are formal U.S. allies, meaning that treaty commitments under the Bangkok Treaty could overlap with existing alliance obligations, significantly increasing the risk of automatic entanglement.
The treaty also creates a deeper strategic contradiction that would weaken America’s ability to protect its strategic interests. For example, consider a scenario in which China threatens a nuclear strike against Vietnam. Under the treaty, the United States would be expected to defend Vietnam from Chinese nuclear coercion.
However, the treaty simultaneously imposes key restrictions: the U.S. would not be allowed to threaten nuclear retaliation within the treaty zone, could not use nuclear deterrence in the South China Sea, and would be forced to rely solely on conventional forces.
This produces what military strategists call an “umbrella without teeth.” ASEAN countries would receive American promises of protection, legal commitments to their nuclear security, and expectations of deterrence. But U.S. protection would lack credibility because it cannot include the threat of nuclear response precisely in the region where such threats are most likely. China, aware of these legal limitations, would understand that the U.S. is self-constrained.
This dynamic benefits China in several ways. It allows Beijing to threaten ASEAN countries with nuclear weapons from outside the treaty zone while knowing the U.S. cannot respond in kind. It forces Washington into expensive, high-risk conventional military responses and creates doubt among allies about America’s commitment once they realize U.S. nuclear deterrence is legally restricted.
In short, the Bangkok Treaty could create the same dynamic seen in the Budapest Memorandum: allies expect protection, but legal constraints prevent the U.S. from delivering credible deterrence. The result could be either failed commitments or costly wars fought without the full spectrum of American power. It’s a textbook example of a multilateral agreement that increases U.S. obligations while decreasing U.S. capabilities, exactly the type of strategic trap that foreign policy realists warn against.
Several factors make the Bangkok Treaty potentially more consequential than Budapest. Geographically, it covers ten countries and vast maritime zones in the South China Sea, a region central to global commerce and the U.S.-China strategic rivalry. In contrast, the Budapest Memorandum involved only three landlocked or inland nations.
Strategically, while Ukraine was important, it was not central to global trade; Southeast Asia, by contrast, controls critical shipping lanes. And finally, the adversary in the Bangkok case, China, is far stronger than Russia was in the 1990s, with rapidly growing military capabilities and status as a near-peer competitor. Any conflict in this region would be far more complex and dangerous.
This sets up a classic foreign policy dilemma: signing the Bangkok Treaty risks entangling the U.S. in regional conflicts with reduced military flexibility, while refusing to sign allows China to present itself as the peaceful power and portray America as hostile to nuclear disarmament. Yet from a national security perspective, declining to sign would make the U.S. safer. It would also reinforce America’s longstanding policy of strategic ambiguity, which helps deter conflict in flashpoints like Taiwan by complicating Beijing’s planning and avoiding automatic entanglement in foreign wars.
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