The US has accused China of conducting secret nuclear weapons tests and risking a new nuclear arms race.
“Today, I can reveal that the US government is aware that China has conducted nuclear explosive tests, including preparing for tests with designated yields in the hundreds of tons,” said Thomas DiNanno, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, at a conference in Geneva on Friday.
DiNanno accused Beijing of masking the alleged tests with “a method to decrease the effectiveness of seismic monitoring to hide their activities from the world.” One such test took place on 22 June 2020, he said, without providing evidence.
The claims follow the expiration of New START this week, the main agreement governing nuclear proliferation between the US and Russia, which hold the world’s largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
DiNanno said that China’s alleged clandestine nuclear activity proved that previous agreements were inadequate and called for a “new architecture that addresses the threats of today, not those of a bygone era.”
He called on fellow nuclear powers to take urgent action to prevent an “unmitigated nuclear arms race.”
The extraordinary claim, if true, would mark the first nuclear test of the 21st century by any country other than North Korea. The US, China, and Russia have all pledged not conduct nuclear tests.
China’s ambassador on disarmament, Shen Jian, did not directly address DiNanno’s charge but said Beijing had always acted prudently and responsibly on nuclear issues.
“China notes that the US continues in its statement to hype up the so-called China nuclear threat. China firmly opposes such false narratives,” he said.
Donald Trump said last October that the US would resume nuclear tests on an “equal basis” with China and Russia, accusing the rival powers of conducting tests. Beijing and Moscow denied this.
Arms control researchers believe China is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal of an estimated 600 warheads. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)’s latest report stated that “China’s nuclear arsenal is growing faster than any other country’s, by about 100 new warheads a year since 2023.”
China displays nuclear missiles in Beijing (Photo: VCG/Getty Images)DiNanno said on Friday that China was on course to have “1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, and Russia is supporting this buildup by helping China develop the weapons-grade fissile material necessary for its expansion.”
US researchers reported last year that all three of the leading nuclear powers were preparing nuclear test sites based on satellite imagery.
Andriy Baklitskiy, senior researcher at the WMD programme of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) said the US claims raised urgent questions.
“The US statement accused China of using a decoupling technique – having (an) explosion happen in an underground cavity to reduce detection of the seismic signal – in this way the test may look much weaker and similar to a conventional explosion. We don’t know anything else about how the US made this determination and how they were able to determine this was not a conventional explosion in the first place,” he said.
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Baklitskiy said the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CBTBO), a body tasked with monitoring nuclear tests, could shed light on the alleged incident.
The i Paper has approached the CBTBO for comment.
“The US will probably stand by its claims regardless,” he added. “It is also unclear what this means. US has been accusing Russia of non-zero yield testing since at least 2019 and this has not led to any material changes on the US side. Will the accusation of Chinese activity from six years ago change this is an open question.”
“Regardless, we will hear more about nuclear testing in the weeks to come.”
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