National Defense

Trump Admin Accuses China Of Covert Nuclear Tests As Arms Control Limits End

Public Domain Image via Wikimedia Commons

The Trump administration on Friday accused China of secretly testing nuclear weapons and hiding them from the world.

Speaking at a global disarmament conference in Geneva, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Thomas DiNanno alleged that Beijing carried out a covert nuclear explosive test in July of 2020 in violation of its international commitments and deliberately attempted to hide those activities from global monitors.

“I can reveal that the U.S. government is aware that China has conducted nuclear explosive tests, including preparing for tests with designated yields in the hundreds of tons,” DiNanno said at the conference, according to Reuters.

The Chinese military “sought to conceal testing by obfuscating the nuclear explosions because it recognized these tests violate test ban commitments. China has used ‘decoupling’, a method to decrease the effectiveness of seismic monitoring, to hide their activities from the world,” DiNanno said, according to the outlet.

Shen Jian, China’s ambassador to the conference, did not directly address the accusation of a secret test, but rejected what he described as U.S. attempts to exaggerate the threat posed by China’s nuclear modernization, according to Reuters.

“China notes that the U.S. continues in its statement to hype up the so-called China nuclear threat. China firmly opposes such false narratives,” Shen said. “[The U.S.] is the culprit for the aggravation of the arms race.”

The allegations surfaced just one day after the expiration of the New START treaty, the last remaining agreement limiting U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons. Its lapse marks the first time in more than 50 years that the world’s two largest nuclear powers are no longer bound by formal limits on their missile and warhead deployments.

President Donald Trump on Thursday called the treaty — signed in 2010 by former President Barack Obama and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev — a “badly negotiated deal by the United States that, aside from everything else, is being grossly violated.”

DiNanno also used the conference to argue that the model of bilateral nuclear agreements is no longer sufficient. He reiterated the administration’s position that any future arms control framework must include China alongside Russia.

“Today, the United States faces threats from multiple nuclear powers,” DiNanno said. “A bilateral treaty with only one nuclear power is simply inappropriate in 2026 and beyond.”

Despite the Trump administration’s push for expanded denuclearization talks involving both Russia and China, Beijing has flatly refused. Chinese officials — whose country has an estimated 600 nuclear warheads — argue it should not be pressured into negotiations alongside two countries with far larger nuclear stockpiles.

U.S. officials have repeatedly warned, however, that China is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal, projecting that Beijing could possess more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030.