Wednesday’s allegations out of the US State Department that China may have violated the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty with low-yield tests are being rejected by Chinese officials, who say that they remain committed to the treaty and a moratorium on tests.
Chinese officials said the whole US statement was a “complete distortion of the facts,” and that they had no need to conduct nuclear tests, since they’d already gotten all the data needed in tests in the 1980s and 1990s.
China’s refutation is very non-specific, because the US allegations did not offer any direct incident claims, nor any evidence of any wrongdoing by the Chinese. Chinese officials say new nuclear research is strictly focused on civilian use, and there appears to be no reason to doubt that, given the facts available.
US allegations of CTBT violations, without evidence, are nothing new, as in 2019 the US similarly claimed Russia was “probably” violating the CTBT, and again offered no evidence.This is widely believed to be an untrue charge, despite the US occasionally repeating it.
Why the US keeps making allegations without evidence on the CTBT is not clear, as these are very important allegations about a vital treaty, and even the accusations are dangerous and potentially costly, moreso if they are plainly false.
With the large nuclear powers, the US in particular, developing new low-yield weapons, some research does continue, though this research is being done via computer simulation, or in sub-critical experiments which are not covered by the CTBT and are considered “zero yield.”
Since the world has large monitoring arrays to detect underground nuclear explosions, it would be virtually impossible for any nation to conduct such tests in secret without being immediately found out. This further makes evidence-free claims tests may have happened particularly improbable.
“Why the US keeps making allegations without evidence on the CTBT is not clear, as these are very important allegations about a vital treaty, and even the accusations are dangerous and potentially costly, moreso if they are plainly false.”
Just part of the “Wuhan Virus” blame game. China bad. While we got them down, why not kick them?
You have a very valid point here, wars. Why the US keeps making such allegations without evidence on the CTBT isn’t clear, as these are quite important allegations about a vital treaty, and even these accusations are dangerous and potentially costly, as you rightly said. Ir’s even more so if they’re plainly false.
Yep, wars, just the “Wuhan Virus” blame game;( China bad. While we got them down, why nor kick them? Well, China’s a powerful nation and has allies in Iran and Russia .. That’s why.
Same ploy as used against Russia, accuse them of violations as the precursor to opting out of a Treaty so we can do what we accused them of doing.
I’m no fan of the CCP and I wouldn’t put it past them to do something like this but the US government is guilty of everything they’re accusing China of.
The most likely explanation is to justify their own eventual testing of “mini-nukes”. So they can say, “at least we’re not testing ‘real’ ones” and “we have to because they are”…
I am sure that if someone is even doing sub-critical tests, never mind critical or super-critical tests, it would be impossible to hide–Too many tell-tales to hide.
The whole CTBT was intended to guarantee that those nations without
very sophisticated nuclear modeling codes and the associated decades of empirical data
would never be able to develop nuclear weapons. Without years of
research and experience only a real test can demonstrate capability. I could well imagine that less experienced players could have some of their sub-critical tests get out of hand.
Be nice to have some details from the U.S.; did China ‘accidentally’ blow up a nuke plant?
Because, you know, if China would release bioweapons on themselves, they would nuke themselves too.