Nuclear-weapon states in the context of "RDS-1"

The Quint is an informal decision-making group consisting of the United States and the Big Four of Western Europe (France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom). All the countries forming it are allies and members of NATO, the OECD and the G7/G20.

The United States, France and the United Kingdom are nuclear-weapon states, while Germany and Italy are part of the nuclear weapons sharing program.

China was the fifth country to develop and test nuclear weapons. China's tested its first nuclear weapon in 1964 and its first full-scale thermonuclear weapon in 1967. It is one of the five nuclear-weapon states recognized by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to which it acceded in 1992. It carried out 45 nuclear tests before signing the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996.

The Federation of American Scientists and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimate China's stockpile at approximately 600 nuclear warheads as of 2025, making it the third-largest in the world. It is the only NPT nuclear-weapon state significantly expanding its arsenal, which has doubled since 2019, and is projected to reach between 750 and 1,500 warheads by 2035, although it has not restarted fissile material production. Unlike the US and Russia, nearly all Chinese warheads are believed to be in central storage, separate from their delivery system.

The Big Four, also known as the E4 or G4, refers to France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. France and the United Kingdom are official nuclear-weapon states and are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power of veto, which enables any one of them to prevent the adoption of any "substantive" draft Council resolution, regardless of its level of international support. The United Kingdom is the only country of the Big Four which is not a member state of the European Union, having ended its membership in 2020, pursuant to a referendum held in 2016. France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom are considered major European powers and they are the Western European countries individually represented as full members of the G7 and the G20. They have been referred to as the "Big Four of Europe" since the interwar period.

The term G4 was used for the first time when French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for a meeting in Paris with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to consider the response to the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development describes them as the "Four Big European Countries".

The People's Republic of China has possessed nuclear weapons since the 1960s. It was the last to develop them of the five nuclear-weapon states recognized by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). China acceded to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1984, acceded to the NPT in 1992, and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 1997.

China tested its first nuclear bomb in 1964 and its first full-scale thermonuclear bomb in 1967. It carried out 45 nuclear tests before signing the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996.