China has firmly denied allegations that it has been conducting secret nuclear weapons tests, refuting claims made by United States President Donald Trump as he seeks to justify resuming American nuclear testing.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning stated on Monday that Beijing has maintained its commitment to the decades-long informal moratorium on nuclear weapons testing. "As a responsible nuclear-weapon state, China is committed to peaceful development, follows a policy of 'no first use' of nuclear weapons and a nuclear strategy that focuses on self-defence," she said.
Speaking in a CBS television interview on Sunday, Trump alleged that China, Russia, North Korea, and Pakistan are all engaged in secret underground nuclear testing, though he provided no evidence to support these assertions. "Russia's testing, and China's testing, but they don't talk about it," Trump claimed. "I don't want to be the only country that doesn't test."
The accusations came after Trump's surprise announcement last Thursday ordering the Department of Defense to "immediately" resume nuclear weapons testing. The declaration was made via social media minutes before entering a summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The United States has not conducted a nuclear explosion since 1992. Apart from North Korea, no country is known to have detonated a nuclear weapon for decades. Russia and China report their last tests occurred in 1990 and 1996, respectively.
However, confusion surrounds the scope of Trump's testing directive. Energy Secretary Chris Wright subsequently clarified that planned tests would be "system tests" rather than nuclear explosions. "These are what we call 'non-critical explosions,' so you're testing all the other parts of a nuclear weapon," Wright explained in a Fox News interview.
China has called on Washington to maintain the testing moratorium and "take concrete actions to safeguard the international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime."
