China 'massively expanded' nuclear arsenal, says US

GENEVA – Washington on Feb 23 accused China of dramatically swelling its nuclear arsenal, and doubled down on claims that Beijing has been conducting secret nuclear tests, demanding again it be part of any future arms control treaty.

Washington said the lapsing earlier in February of New START – the last treaty between top nuclear powers the United States and Russia – presented the possibility to achieve a “better agreement”, including Beijing.

China has publicly rejected calls to enter negotiations on a new three-way treaty.

Dr Christopher Yeaw, the US assistant secretary of state for arms control and non-proliferation, told the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva that New START had been seriously flawed and “did not account for the unprecedented, deliberate, rapid and opaque nuclear weapons build-up by China”.

“Despite its claims to the contrary, China has deliberately and without constraint, massively expanded its nuclear arsenal without transparency or any indication of China’s intent or end point,” he charged.

He added that US government officials “believe China may achieve parity within the next four or five years”, without elaborating on what he meant by parity.

Both Russia and the US have more than 5,000 nuclear weapons, according to the Nobel Peace Prize-winning campaign group ICAN.

But New START, which expired on Feb 5, restricted the US and Russia to 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads each – a number Washington says China is fast approaching.

“Beijing is on track to have the fissile material necessary for more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030,” Dr Yeaw said.

“No longer relevant”

The expiration of New START marks the first time in decades that there is no treaty to curtail the positioning of the planet’s most destructive weapons, sparking fears of a fresh arms race.

Dr Yeaw welcomed the lapsing of the treaty, insisting its numerical limits on warheads and launchers were “no longer relevant”, given Russia’s alleged violation of the treaty.

He also accused Moscow of helping “boost Beijing’s capacity to increase its arsenal size”.

“The expiration arrived at a fortuitous time,” he said, insisting it would allow US President Donald Trump to push towards his “ultimate goal of a better agreement”.

“The treaty’s expiration and the absence of any nuclear arms control treaty right now do not mean the United States is walking away from or ignoring arms control,” he said. “Quite the opposite is true.

“Our goal is a better agreement toward a world with fewer nuclear weapons.”

Dr Yeaw indicated last week that Mr Trump was serious when he said in October, without giving details, that the US would resume nuclear testing. It last test-detonated a nuclear bomb in 1992.

He doubled down on Feb 23 on US accusations that China carried out a low-yield nuclear test in 2020 and is preparing more explosions with larger yields.

China has said the allegations were “outright lies” and a pretext for the US to resume nuclear testing.

The State Department in 2024 also alleged low-yield tests by Russia, which has issued veiled threats of using nuclear weapons in its invasion of Ukraine.

Dr Yeaw told the conference on Feb 23 that data gathered in nearby Kazakhstan showed that China conducted a 2.75-magnitude explosion underground on June 22, 2020 at 0918 GMT.

“It was a probable explosion. Based on comparisons between historic explosions and earthquakes, the seismic signals were indicative of a single fire explosion, not typical of mining explosions,” he said.

“The estimated yield of the event was a 10 tonne nuclear explosion, or five tonnes conventional equivalent, which assumes the explosion was fully coupled in hard rock below the water table.”

In a recent report, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies did not find conclusive evidence of an explosion, saying satellite imagery did not show unusual activity at Lop Nur, China’s historic testing site in the western region of Xinjiang. AFP