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Possible Chinese Nuclear Testing Stirs U.S. Concern
Beijing might secretly be conducting small nuclear tests at its Lop Nur site, report says
By
Michael R. Gordon
Updated April 15, 2020 5:35 pm ET
China might be secretly conducting nuclear tests with very low explosive power despite Beijing’s assertions that it is strictly adhering to an international accord banning all nuclear tests, according to a new arms-control report to be made public by the State Department.
The coming report doesn’t present proof that China is violating its promise to uphold the agreement, but it cites an array of activities that “raise concerns” that Beijing might not be complying with the “zero-yield” nuclear-weapons testing ban.
The concerns stem from the high tempo of activity at China’s Lop Nur test site, extensive excavations at the site, and Beijing’s purported use of special chambers to contain explosions.
Another factor feeding U.S. suspicions is the interruption in past years of data transmissions from monitoring stations on Chinese territory that are designed to detect radioactive emissions and seismic tremors.
It also comes as President Trump is seeking to open nuclear-arms talks with Beijing in the hope of negotiating a new nuclear deal that also includes Russia and covers all nuclear weapons.
China’s Embassy in Washington didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Some former arms-control officials said that the Trump administration appeared to be more concerned with scoring points against China than resolving potential disputes through diplomacy.
“If the United States has concerns that nuclear-yield producing testing has been done by China, we should discuss our concerns with Beijing—and discuss ways to build confidence that such tests are not happening,” said Steven Andreasen, who was the top National Security Council official on arms control during the Clinton administration.
The agreement at the core of the dispute is the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which was concluded in 1996. The accord allows a range of activities to assure the safety and reliability of nuclear weapons, including experiments involving fissile material, as long as they don’t produce a nuclear-explosive yield.
The treaty isn’t legally in force because not enough nations have ratified it, though major powers, including the U.S. and China, say they are abiding by its terms. While the U.S. and China have signed the agreement, neither has ratified it.
One activity that has fed U.S. suspicions has been interruptions in the flow of data in past years from monitoring stations in China that measure radioactive particles and seismic tremors.
The stations are part of an international network of hundreds of sites set up to verify compliance with the test-ban treaty. Participating nations are responsible for running the stations and have been voluntarily transmitting data to the Vienna-based organization that is to oversee the accord as the agreement has yet to formally go into effect.
A spokeswoman for the body—the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization—said there has been virtually no interruption in the data transmissions by the Chinese since September 2019.
Data transmissions were interrupted previously, she said, but that was the result of the negotiating process between the CTBT organization and the Chinese government on arrangements for putting the stations in operation.
“Data transmission from all certified stations was interrupted in 2018 after the testing and evaluation and certification process was completed,” she said. “In August 2019, ongoing negotiations on post-certification activity contracts with Chinese station operators were concluded and data transmission resumed for all five certified stations.”
In contrast, the administration’s report accuses China of “blocking the flow of data from the monitoring stations.”
China will likely double the size of its nuclear stockpile over the next decade, Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley Jr., the director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, said in a May 2019 appearance at the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank.
Gen. Ashley noted then that progress China was making “raised questions” whether it was strictly adhering to the test ban treaty. China’s arsenal is estimated to be about 300 nuclear warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists. The U.S. has a stockpile of 3,800 nuclear warheads that could be carried on long-range and short-range delivery systems, but only 1,700 are deployed, the group says.
Tim Morrison, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute who served as lead arms-control official on President Trump’s National Security Council, said the activity at the Lop Nur site appeared to indicate that China is cheating. “It is not arms control when only the U.S. adheres to a commitment,” he said.
But Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, a nongovernmental group, said activity at Lop Nur isn’t proof the Chinese have been engaging in low-yield testing.
“The most effective way to resolve concerns about very low-yield nuclear explosions and enforce compliance with the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is for the United States—and China—to ratify the treaty and help bring it into force,” Mr. Kimball said. “When it does, states have the option to demand intrusive, short-notice on-site inspections.”
The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency asserted last year that Russia had violated the zero-yield standard at its nuclear test site in Novaya Zemlya, a remote archipelago above the Arctic Circle, though it didn’t say when this might have occurred.
The new State Department report, which is based on U.S. intelligence, says that the U.S. doesn’t know if this occurred in 2019. But it asserts that some Russian’s activities since 1996 “have demonstrated a failure to adhere to the U.S. ‘zero-yield’ standard, which would prohibit supercritical tests.”
Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com
https://www.wsj.com/articles/possible-chinese-nuclear-testing-stirs-u-s-concern-11586970435
U.S. says China may have conducted low-level nuclear test blasts
Jonathan Landay
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China may have secretly set off low-level underground nuclear test explosions despite claiming to observe an international pact banning such blasts, the U.S. State Department said in a report on Wednesday that could fuel U.S.-Chinese tensions.
The finding, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, may worsen ties already strained by U.S. charges that the global COVID-19 pandemic resulted from Beijing’s mishandling of a 2019 outbreak of the coronavirus in the city of Wuhan.
U.S. concerns about Beijing’s possible breaches of a “zero yield” standard for test blasts have been prompted by activities at China’s Lop Nur nuclear test site throughout 2019, the State Department report said.
Zero yield refers to a nuclear test in which there is no explosive chain reaction of the type ignited by the detonation of a nuclear warhead.
“China’s possible preparation to operate its Lop Nur test site year-round, its use of explosive containment chambers, extensive excavation activities at Lop Nur and a lack of transparency on its nuclear testing activities ... raise concerns regarding its adherence to the zero yield standard,” the report said, without providing evidence of a low-yield test.
Beijing’s lack of transparency included blocking data transmissions from sensors linked to a monitoring center operated by the international agency that verifies compliance with a treaty banning nuclear test explosions.
The 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) allows activities designed to ensure the safety of nuclear weapons.
A spokeswoman for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, which verifies compliance with the pact, told the Wall Street Journal there had been no interruptions in data transmissions from China’s five sensor stations since the end of August 2019 following an interruption that began in 2018.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a daily briefing in Beijing that China was committed to a moratorium on nuclear tests and said the United States was making false accusations.
“China has always adopted a responsible attitude, earnestly fulfilling the international obligations and promises it has assumed,” he said.
“The U.S. criticism of China is entirely groundless, without foundation, and not worth refuting.”
‘WORRYING’
A senior U.S. official said the concerns about China’s testing activities buttressed President Donald Trump’s case for getting China to join the United States and Russia in talks on an arms control accord to replace the 2010 New START treaty between Washington and Moscow that expires in February.
New START restricted the United States and Russia to deploying no more than 1,550 nuclear warheads, the lowest level in decades, and limited the land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers that deliver them.
“The pace and manner by which the Chinese government is modernizing its stockpile is worrying, destabilizing, and illustrates why China should be brought into the global arms control framework,” said the senior U.S. official on condition of anonymity.
China, estimated to have about 300 nuclear weapons, has repeatedly rejected Trump’s proposal, arguing its nuclear force is defensive and poses no threat.
Russia, France and Britain - three of the world’s five internationally recognized nuclear powers - signed and ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which still requires ratification by 44 countries to become international law.
China and the United States are among eight signatories that have not ratified it. But China has declared its adherence to its terms, while the United States has observed a unilateral testing moratorium since 1992.
Reporting by Jonathan Landay in Washington; additional reporting by Gabriel Crossley in Beijing; Editing by Arshad Mohammed, Jonathan Oatis and Richard Chang
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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