Countries, especially major powers, should shoulder their due responsibilities in safeguarding strategic stability as the world faces rising security risks, a Chinese defense scholar said on Saturday at the high-level security forum Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

Major General Meng Xiangqing, a professor at China's National Defense University, made the remarks at a parallel session of the Shangri-La Dialogue under the topic "managing threats to strategic stability".

In his speech, Meng warned that strategic stability is facing unprecedented challenges. These include the impact of hegemonism on regional security, rising risks of global nuclear conflict, the serious erosion of international arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation systems, and disorder in global governance.

"Some countries are engaging in power politics, seeking absolute strategic superiority and provoking bloc confrontation," he said, adding that such moves have intensified arms races and regional conflicts.

Meng also warned that nuclear risks are increasing, as parties involved in recent conflicts have repeatedly sent signals of nuclear deterrence. The threat of nuclear war, he said, "is not far away, but close at hand".

He said the world is also seeing the accelerating militarization of emerging domains such as outer space, cyberspace and artificial intelligence. "The militarization of emerging technologies is challenging traditional laws of armed conflict and war ethics, increasing the risk that wars could spin out of control."

To address these risks, Meng called for firmly defending the postwar international order, advancing fair and reasonable global security governance, strengthening consensus on arms control, and managing the risks of emerging technologies.

Meng said firmly defending the postwar international order is essential to building the political foundation for strategic stability.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the opening of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, he said. "The just trial forever nailed the monstrous crimes of Japanese militarism to history's pillar of shame, and laid an important legal foundation for the postwar international order."

Meng stressed that as the world again stands at a crossroads, countries must stay alert to any revival of militarist thinking and firmly safeguard the outcomes of World War II and the postwar international order.

On nuclear arms control, Meng said the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons remains the cornerstone of the international nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament system.

He called on countries with the largest nuclear arsenals to fulfill their special and primary responsibilities in nuclear disarmament and restart the process as soon as possible in a verifiable, irreversible and legally binding manner.

Meng also warned against a "rules vacuum" in the military use of emerging technologies.

"Allowing algorithms to control matters of life and death could very likely lead to technological loss of control," he said. "At all times, control over war and related weapon systems must be firmly kept in human hands."

He said China has submitted a position paper on regulating the military application of artificial intelligence under the framework of the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, and supports reaching a legally binding international instrument when conditions are ripe.

Meng concluded by calling on countries to practice true multilateralism and work together to inject positive energy into global strategic stability.