The United States' nuclear arms policy will fuel a nuclear arms race and jeopardize peace and stability, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Friday.

Wang said that through its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) released on Thursday, the U.S. was aiming to use nuclear weapons "as tools to advance its geopolitical agenda. This is clearly against the world's desire to prevent a nuclear war or nuclear arms race."

"The U.S. has placed more importance on the role of nuclear weapons in national security policy and lowered the threshold for using nuclear weapons, which has gradually become a source of risks for nuclear conflict," Wang stressed.

In justifying Washington's adoption of an "integrated deterrence approach," the NPR depicts the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as posing "a persistent threat and growing danger," Russia as an "acute" threat and China as "increasing its capability to threaten" the West.

"The U.S. has been hyping up the so-called nuclear threat from certain countries, 'tailoring' nuclear deterrence strategies targeting these countries and calling for 'nuclear sharing' that violates the NPT," Wang added.

The Pentagon also released two other documents in conjunction with the NPR – the National Defense Strategy (NDS) and the Missile Defense Review (MDR). The NDS calls China the "most comprehensive and serious challenge to U.S. national security," while the MDR states that Washington "will continue to rely on strategic deterrence."

Noting that "the U.S. has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, and continues to upgrade its "nuclear triad" and selectively advances the international nuclear arms control process only when doing so serves to suppress the countries it sees as rivals," Wang said "what's behind the U.S. policy is its hegemonic logic of seeking absolute military superiority, which could stoke a nuclear arms race."

"Let me make it clear that we have the capability and confidence to safeguard our national security interests," he added. "The U.S.'s nuclear blackmail will not work on China."