Washington, DC: The US has accused China of conducting a covert nuclear test on June 22, 2020, just days after the deadly Galwan Valley clash between soldiers of the Indian Army and People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
The allegation underscores the need for a new global arms control framework following the expiry of the New START treaty, Washington has said, as reported by TOI.
The Galwan clash took place on June 15, 2020, barely a week before the alleged nuclear test. Twenty Indian soldiers were killed, while reports at the time estimated Chinese casualties at over 35.
US under secretary of state Thomas G DiNanno said China used techniques designed to evade international monitoring systems while carrying out yield-producing nuclear tests.
“China has conducted nuclear explosive tests, including preparing for tests with designated yields in the hundreds of tons… China has used decoupling – a method to decrease the effectiveness of seismic monitoring – to hide its activities from the world. China conducted one such yield producing nuclear test on June 22, 2020,” DiNanno said in a post on X.
His remarks came as the New START treaty, the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between the US and Russia, formally expired this week, leaving the world’s two largest nuclear powers without binding limits on their strategic arsenals for the first time in more than five decades.
“New START was signe
d in 2010 and its limits on warheads and launchers are no longer relevant in 2026 when one nuclear power is expanding its arsenal at a scale and pace not seen in over half a century and another continues to maintain and develop a vast range of nuclear systems unconstrained by New START’s terms,” DiNanno said.
The treaty imposed uneven constraints on nuclear powers, he said.
“…almost all of the U.S. deployed nuclear forces were subject to New START while only a fraction of Russia’s much larger stockpile was… exactly zero Chinese nuclear weapons were covered by New START,” DiNanno said.
“This confluence of factors – serial Russian violations, growth of worldwide stockpiles, and flaws in New START’s design and implementation – gives the United States a clear imperative to call for a new architecture that addresses the threats of today, not those of a bygone era,” he said.
The under secretary added that Washington was now in a position to strengthen deterrence while remaining open to meaningful negotiations.
“No longer constrained by the political-military circumstances of 2010 and the treaty they yielded and in response to the destabilizing behavior of these other countries, the United States can now finally take steps… to strengthen deterrence on behalf of the American people and our allies,” DiNanno said.
Washington has renewed calls for three-way nuclear arms control talks involving China and Russia following New START’s expiration. The US has said that any future agreement must include China. This demand has been firmly rejected by Beijing.
China also denied allegations of covert nuclear tests and said it will not participate in disarmament negotiations at this stage. Its nuclear arsenal remains far smaller than those of the United States and Russia, Beijing has maintained.