Jonathan Randy
WASHINGTON, Feb 17 (Reuters) – A senior U.S. official revealed new details on Tuesday about an underground nuclear test allegedly conducted by China in June 2020.
On June 22, 2020, a remote seismic station in Kazakhstan measured a magnitude 2.75 “explosion” at the Lop Nur test site in western China, 450 miles (720 kilometers) away, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Ye said at an event at the Hudson Institute think tank in Washington.
“Since then, I’ve looked at more data. It’s almost impossible for me to say it was just one explosion, a single explosion,” Yeo said, adding that the data was inconsistent with mining explosions.
“It’s also completely inconsistent with the earthquake narrative,” said You, a former intelligence analyst and defense official with a doctorate in nuclear engineering. “This is… what you would expect from a nuclear explosion test.”
The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, which is responsible for detecting nuclear test explosions, said it did not have enough data to substantiate Yeo’s allegations.
A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said the accusations that China had conducted nuclear tests were “completely baseless” and was trying to “make up excuses” for the United States to resume nuclear tests.
“This is a political maneuver aimed at pursuing nuclear hegemony and evading nuclear disarmament responsibilities,” Chinese Embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu said in an emailed statement.
China urges the United States to reaffirm the commitment of the five nuclear-weapon countries not to conduct nuclear tests, maintain the global consensus against nuclear tests, and take practical actions to safeguard the international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation system.
U.S. President Donald Trump is urging China to join the United States and Russia in negotiating a replacement for New START, the last strategic nuclear weapons limitation agreement between the United States and Russia, which expired on February 5.
The treaty’s expiration has fueled concerns that the world is on the verge of an accelerated nuclear arms race.
China denies nuclear test
China, which has signed but not ratified the 1996 international treaty banning nuclear testing, has denied conducting underground nuclear tests after the United States first raised the allegation at an international conference earlier this month. China’s last official underground test was conducted in 1996.
Kazakhstan’s PS23 seismic station is part of the global monitoring system operated by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO).
The group’s executive secretary, Robert Floyd, said in a statement that the PS23 station recorded “two very small seismic events” on June 22, 2020, 12 seconds apart.
He said the CTBTO’s monitoring system could detect “events” consistent with a nuclear test explosion producing 551 tons (500 metric tons) of TNT or more.
“Both of these events were well below that level. So it’s impossible to confidently assess the cause of these events based on these data alone,” Floyd said.
China tried to hide the test by using a method called “decoupling,” in which the device was detonated inside a large basement to reduce the intensity of the shock wave it sent through the surrounding rock, Ye said.
Like China, the United States has signed but not approved a trial ban. Under international law, both countries are obliged to abide by the agreement.
The United States conducted its last underground nuclear test in 1992 and has relied on a multibillion-dollar program that uses advanced tools and supercomputer simulations to ensure its nuclear warheads work properly.
China has rejected Trump’s call to negotiate a three-way treaty to replace New START, saying its strategic nuclear arsenal pales in comparison to the world’s top nuclear powers Washington and Moscow.
The Pentagon stated that China currently has more than 600 combat warheads and is massively expanding its strategic nuclear forces. China is expected to deploy more than 1,000 warheads by 2030.
(Reporting by Jonathan Landy; Editing by Don Durfee, Jonathan Otis and Lincoln Feist.)
