The US accused China of having carried out a secret nuclear detonation in 2020 and warned that President Donald Trump’s government could resume its atomic tests for the first time in three decades so as not to be at a “disadvantage”.
US Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Christopher Yeaw, made the accusation during an event held this Tuesday at the Hudson Institute think tank in Washington.
“The US has proven that China has carried out explosive nuclear tests, including preparing for tests with designated yields of hundreds of tons,” Yeaw said.
The American official stated that to “hide its activities from the world”, Beijing resorted to “decoupling” techniques, such as detonating devices at great depths underground, to avoid detection by international surveillance systems.
According to Yeaw, the controlled explosion occurred on June 22, 2020, “very close” to a secret facility known as Lop Nur, in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, and the US detected it thanks to seismic data captured from neighboring Kazakhstan.
The Chinese explosion would have reached a magnitude of 2.76 and was not compatible with an earthquake or mining activities, argued Yeaw, who, however, was unable to specify the amount of energy released in the detonation due to the alleged efforts of the Chinese regime to hide the test.
Yeaw recalled that President Trump expressed interest in resuming US nuclear weapons testing, which was halted in 1992, claiming that Russia and China are also doing so.
“We will not remain at an intolerable disadvantage,” Yeaw said.
The United States, China and Russia signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996, which prohibits any nuclear explosion, although the first two countries never ratified the text and Moscow rescinded its ratification in 2023.
After the expiration this month of the New START treaty to limit the nuclear race, Trump urged the development of a new pact that includes not only Russia but also China, which has so far refused to participate in such agreements.
