China struggles with stance on nuclear power as summit nears

BEIJING -- Two weeks before the United States hosts a summit on nuclear security, one of its most important invitees, China, has yet to RSVP.

Chinese President Hu Jintao will be in the neighborhood for a meeting in Brazil three days after the Washington summit is scheduled to end April 13. But China's coyness in accepting an invitation that went out to the leaders of more than 40 countries reflects an uncertainty about how to deal with the Obama administration's call for a nuclear-weapons-free world and its role as a rising nuclear power, even while the United States and Russia move to cut their nuclear stocks, according to Chinese government sources and Western analysts.

Officials in Washington had assumed that China would not participate in the summit as punishment for a $6.4 billion U.S. weapons sale to Taiwan that was announced in January. But some U.S. officials and analysts say China's failure to announce its intentions suggests that the government is trying to figure out how it can take part.

"China is going to have to weigh its desire to punish the United States with its own desire to send a signal to the world that they are a responsible player that need not be viewed as threatening," said Christopher P. Twomey, an expert on China's nuclear strategy at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.