The United States has accused China of holding clandestine nuclear tests — including one instance mere days after the Galwan Valley clash with India. The revelation came from Under Secretary Thomas G DiNanno during a disarmament conference earlier this week and stressed the need for ways to “address the threats of today”. The US and Russia were recently freed from nuclear arsenal limits for the first time in decades as the New START treaty expired.
“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 wrote in a lengthy X thread.
What happened in June 2020?
India and China had clashed violently along the Line of Actual Control in Galwan Valley five years ago — leaving dozens dead on both sides of the border. The deadliest border confrontation in more than four decades saw soldiers fighting hand-to-hand and using improvised weapons as they adhered to a 1996 agreement prohibiting the use of firearms and explosives in such border areas. India had confirmed the death of 20 armymen, including Colonel B. Santosh Babu, the commanding officer of 16th Bihar Regiment. Heavily censored accounts by China had put the list of casualties at four people — though multiple reports indicate up to 38 of its soldiers died during the battle.
According to a CNN report, Beijing had held a “yield-producing” nuclear test days after the Galwan Valley skirmish on June 15 that year. Information about the 2020 test has reportedly been declassified. DiNanno also accused the Chinese military of trying “to conceal testing by obfuscating the nuclear explosions because it recognised these tests violate test ban commitments”.
‘Need for new architecture against threats of today’
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty or New START expired recently — freeing the US and Russia from all major nuclear restraints. The bilateral nuclear arms control agreement was signed in 2010 and capped each side at 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers.
Moscow had suspended participation in 2023 amid the Ukraine tensions, but both sides largely stayed within limits until its full expiration this month. The US has since called for a new trilateral deal that includes Beijing.
“New START was signed 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. Almost all of the US 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 wrote on Friday.