US ramps up nuclear claims against China

Washington believes that Beijing carried out a covert test six years ago

China carried out an underground “nuclear explosive test” in June 2020, a senior US State Department official has claimed, citing “fresh intelligence” on the matter. Beijing has repeatedly dismissed such allegations as “entirely unfounded,” while independent observers say the evidence is inconclusive.

The US assistant secretary for arms control and nonproliferation, Christopher Yeaw, made the latest claims on Tuesday during an event hosted by the conservative Hudson Institute think tank in Washington.

He cited seismic data “quite consistent with what you would expect from a nuclear explosive test.” 

“I’ve looked at additional data since then. There is very little possibility, I would say, that it is anything but an explosion, a singular explosion,” Yeaw stated.

The minor 2.75 magnitude seismic event was registered by a remote station in Kazakhstan. Its epicenter was located some 725km away at the Lop Nur nuclear testing grounds in China, prompting the US to claim that it was caused by an underground blast.

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China has repeatedly dismissed the American allegations as “entirely unfounded” and used only as a pretext to justify Washington’s own intent to resume nuclear testing. Yeaw’s remarks invoked a similar reaction, with a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington telling Reuters the latest claims were “political manipulation aimed at pursuing nuclear hegemony and evading its own nuclear disarmament responsibilities.” 

Moscow has backed Beijing, repeatedly stating no evidence to support Washington’s claims exists. “Neither Russia nor China has conducted any nuclear tests. And we also know that these claims were firmly denied by representatives of China,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Preskov told reporters on Wednesday.  

Independent observers have said there is too little evidence to positively establish the nature of the June 2020 incident. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, for instance, said that the monitoring station in Kazakhstan merely picked up “two very small seismic events, 12 seconds apart,” and it was not possible “with this data alone” to assess “the cause of these events with confidence.”