ABSTRACT
On January 20, 2021, Senator Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, in the backdrop of a politically divided country that faced some of the most critical domestic, foreign policy and security challenges. Amidst these complex challenges, urgent attention was also required on the two most pressing nuclear proliferation challenges: one being the resolution of the North Korean nuclear conundrum and the other, the salvaging of an already collapsing JCPOA. Just as China figures as an important externality in the resolution of the North Korean nuclear conundrum, in the case of Iran too, it has come to occupy immense significance. The Chinese support to the sanctions regime, aimed at dissuading the proliferation ambitions of states such as North Korea and Iran has been identified by the US officials as crucial to the US led global non-proliferation efforts.
