WASHINGTON, Feb 18 (Reuters) – A senior U.S. official on Tuesday revealed what he said were new details of an underground nuclear test that China allegedly carried out in June 2020.
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Yeaw said at an event at the Hudson Institute, 🏽 in Washington, that a remote seismic station in Kazakhstan measured a 2.75-magnitude “explosion” located 720 km away at the Lop Nor test site in western China on June 22, 2020.
“I have analyzed additional data since then. There is very little possibility that it is anything other than an explosion, a singular explosion,” Yeaw stated, adding that the data was not consistent with mine explosions.
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“It’s also not entirely consistent with an earthquake,” said Yeaw, a former intelligence analyst and defense official with a doctorate in nuclear engineering. “It’s… what you would expect from a nuclear explosive test.”
The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, responsible for detecting nuclear test explosions, said there was not enough data to reliably confirm Yeaw’s claim.
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington said the allegation about China carrying out a nuclear test was “completely unfounded” and an attempt to “invent excuses to resume” US nuclear tests.
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“This is a political manipulation with the aim of seeking nuclear hegemony and evading its own responsibilities in relation to nuclear disarmament,” Chinese embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu said in an emailed statement.
“China urges the US to reaffirm the commitment of the five nuclear-armed states to refrain from nuclear testing, uphold the global consensus against nuclear testing, and take concrete measures to safeguard the international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime,” Liu added.
US President Donald Trump is pressing China to join the US and Russia in negotiating a replacement pact for New START, the last strategic nuclear arms limitation agreement between the US and Russia, which expired on February 5.
The treaty’s expiration has fueled concerns that the world is on the brink of an accelerated race for nuclear weapons.
China, which has signed but not ratified the 1996 international treaty banning nuclear testing, denied carrying out an underground nuclear test after the US first made the accusation at an international conference earlier this month. China’s last official underground test took place in 1996.
