Christopher Yeaw, Deputy Secretary of State for the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Directorate, addressed the United Nations-backed Disarmament Conference after the last U.S.-Russia nuclear arms treaty expired this month. The end of the agreement eliminated limits on the arsenals of the world’s two largest nuclear powers and raised fears of a new arms race.
Yeaw asked for greater transparency on the part of China and pointed out failures to the New START treaty, namely the fact that it does not cover the vast Russian arsenal of non-strategic nuclear weapons, estimated at up to 2,000 warheads.
“But perhaps its greatest failure was not taking into account the unprecedented, deliberate, rapid, and opaque increase in China’s nuclear arsenal,” he stated at the conference.
According to Yeaw, Beijing “has massively and unrestrictedly expanded its nuclear arsenal,” despite contrary assurances, lamenting the lack of clarity regarding China’s final objectives. “We believe that China may achieve parity[com os EUA] “within four or five years,” he added.
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Beijing has rejected any restrictions on its nuclear arsenal – smaller but growing – and denies having conducted the nuclear test referred to by the United States.
In his speech, Yeaw mentioned an explosion detected on June 22, 2020, at the Lop Nur underground site in western China, identified as a seismic event with a magnitude of 2.75 based on data collected by a station of the international monitoring system in Kazakhstan.
“It was probably an explosion, based on the comparison between historical explosions and earthquakes,” he said. “The seismic signals were indicative of a single explosion.”
Yea Wong accused China again of hindering international monitoring of its testing activities and of rejecting the installation of seismographic stations at a comparable distance from the Lop Nur area as those allowed by the US near its test site in Nevada.
The Chinese ambassador at the conference stated on Monday that Beijing “firmly rejects the unfounded accusations” of the United States and criticized what it described as the “continuous distortion and defamation” of Chinese nuclear policy by certain countries.
“The U.S. accusation that China conducted a nuclear explosion test is completely unfounded and merely serves as a pretext for resuming their own nuclear tests,” declared Ambassador Jian Shen, adding that such practices damage the international credibility of Washington.
American President, Donald Trump, mentioned in October his intention to resume nuclear tests for the first time since 1992, although the Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, subsequently indicated that such tests would not involve nuclear explosions.
Last week, Yeaw stated at the Hudson Institute that the US will return to testing “on an equal basis,” suggesting that this decision would depend on the behavior of other countries, such as China or Russia. During his first term, Trump attempted, unsuccessfully, to negotiate a trilateral nuclear agreement with China.
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After the expiration of New START, Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the United States is exploring “all avenues” to achieve President Trump’s desire for a world with fewer nuclear weapons, but warned that Washington will not remain idle while Russia and China expand their nuclear forces.
Rubio wrote this month that since 2020, China has increased its arsenal of “little more than 200” to over 600 warheads, potentially surpassing 1,000 by 2030.
The Chinese ambassador stated that Beijing consistently supports the objectives of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, fulfills the testing moratorium commitments made by the five nuclear-weapon states, and has never conducted activities that violate the treaty.
