Defense Ministry spokesperson Ren Guoqiang said "we hope the USA will abandon a Cold War mentality and earnestly shoulder its special and prior responsibility for its own nuclear disarmament".

China has voiced its firm opposition to the new U.S. nuclear strategy that outlines plans to expand the country's nuclear capabilities.

"The United States, the country that owns the world's largest nuclear arsenal, should take the initiative to follow the trend instead of going against it", the statement read.

Regarding China, in addition to describing the Asian country as an adversary, Washington pointed out that it is ready to prevent Beijing from taking advantage if it uses that military technology in Asia or accepts its use in a lesser scale. He said China hopes that the USA will discard its "cold-war mentality" and shoulder its own special and primary responsibility for nuclear disarmament.

The US defence department's Nuclear Posture Review released on Friday outlines the Pentagon's nuclear ambitions under President Donald Trump, while spelling out how it foresees nuclear threats in the coming decades.

The report says China has added new types of nuclear capabilities - ranging from a mobile intercontinental ballistic missile to a new ballistic missile submarine - "with little to no transparency into its intentions".

China's nuclear arsenal is relatively small, estimated by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute at just 270 warheads compared with 6,800 for the US.

In a written statement, Trump said the U.S. strategy is created to reduce the possibility of using atomic weapons. John Rood, Undersecretary of Defence for Policy, said: "There is no automaticity to this policy", when asked how the USA would manage responses to cases of "extreme circumstances".

"Expanding flexible USA nuclear options now, to include low-yield options, is important for the preservation of credible deterrence against regional aggression", the report says.

Iran accused the United States yesterday of threatening Russian Federation.

In a speech on Sunday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said, on one hand the United States is calling the use of weapons of mass destruction as a crime against humanity while on the other hand it is threatening its rivals with a new atomic weapon.

Iran's foreign minister claimed it brought the world "closer to annihilation".

During his campaign, Trump promised to expand and strengthen the United States' nuclear arsenal.

The Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) envisages short-term plans to modify existing submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) warheads to provide a low-yield option and pursue a modern nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM) in the long run.

He said he would waive sanctions against Iran that were lifted as part of the global deal for the last time unless his conditions were met.