A senior United States official has disclosed what he described as new evidence pointing to an alleged underground nuclear test conducted by China in June 2020.
Speaking at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Tuesday, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Yeaw said seismic data from a monitoring station in Kazakhstan detected an “explosion” with a magnitude of 2.75 on June 22, 2020.
The event was reportedly located about 450 miles away at China’s Lop Nor nuclear test site in the country’s western region.
Yeaw, a former intelligence analyst with a doctorate in nuclear engineering, said the seismic signature was inconsistent with mining activity or a natural earthquake.
According to him, further analysis strengthened his belief that the event was “a singular explosion” consistent with a nuclear test.
However, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), which oversees a global monitoring system for nuclear detonations, said there was insufficient data to conclusively determine the cause of the seismic activity.
The organization confirmed that its PS23 station in Kazakhstan recorded two very small seismic events 12 seconds apart on the same date, but said the signals were well below the detection threshold typically associated with nuclear explosions.
China has strongly denied the allegation. In a statement, Chinese embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu described the claim as “entirely unfounded” and accused Washington of political manipulation aimed at justifying a potential resumption of US nuclear testing.
The dispute comes amid renewed tensions over nuclear arms control. Former US President Donald Trump has urged China to join the United States and Russia in negotiating a replacement for the New START treaty, which expired earlier this month. Beijing has rejected calls for a trilateral pact, arguing that its nuclear arsenal is significantly smaller than those of Washington and Moscow.
While China signed the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, it has not ratified it. The United States is also a signatory but has yet to ratify the agreement. China’s last acknowledged underground nuclear test was conducted in 1996, while the United States last carried out such a test in 1992.
The Pentagon estimates that China currently possesses more than 600 operational nuclear warheads and projects that the figure could exceed 1,000 by 2030, as Beijing continues to expand its strategic nuclear capabilities.
Investigations and international scrutiny surrounding the 2020 seismic event remain ongoing.
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