The United States has accused China of dramatically expanding its nuclear arsenal, while reiterating claims that Beijing has conducted secret nuclear tests. The accusations were made at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, as the expiration of the New Start treaty earlier this month raised concerns about a new arms race.
Christopher Yeaw, the US assistant secretary of state for arms control and non-proliferation, said the treaty was “seriously flawed” and did not account for what he described as China’s “unprecedented, deliberate, rapid and opaque nuclear weapons buildup”. He claimed Beijing was “on track to have the fissile material necessary for more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030”.
China’s ambassador to the conference, Shen Jian, rejected the allegations, saying his country “firmly opposes the constant distortion and smearing of its nuclear policy”. He insisted that Beijing would not “engage in any nuclear arms race, with any country”, and that its arsenal was “not in the same league” as those of the largest nuclear powers.
Yeaw also accused China of conducting a secret low-yield nuclear test in June 2020, citing seismic data from Kazakhstan that registered a 2.75-magnitude explosion. He said the estimated yield was ten tonnes. Beijing dismissed the claim as “groundless”, accusing Washington of using it as a pretext to resume its own testing. A report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found no conclusive evidence of an explosion.
The expiration of New Start, which limited the US and Russia to 1,550 deployed warheads each, marks the first time in decades there is no treaty limiting the world’s most destructive weapons. The US has expressed interest in a new agreement that includes China, and a preparatory meeting between US and Chinese officials reportedly took place in Washington after the treaty lapsed.
