Beijing rejects Washingtons accusation of secret nuclear tests
Last updated on February 27th, 2023 at 11:13 am
A US State Department report indicated that Beijing may have conducted a number of underground nuclear explosions, However, China denied the US State Department report’s accusations on Thursday.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Li Jian told reporters during a daily press briefing that Beijing is fulfilling its obligations in non-proliferation treaties, adding that the US accusations are invalid and doesn’t have any proof of what they accuse China with.
“The American criticism of China is totally unfounded and does not deserve refutation.” Said the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Li Jian.
In the summary of its annual report to assess global agreements to reduce nuclear armament, the US State Department said yesterday that China is “continuing a high level of activity” at its test site in Lop Nur, in the western Xinjiang region.
The report said that China may have conducted a series of secret nuclear explosions despite its emphasis on adhering to an international treaty banning such explosions.
This news, which was published by the Wall Street Journal, could lead to a further deterioration of relations already strained due to US accusations that the global Covid-19 pandemic resulted from Beijing’s mishandling of the outbreak in Wuhan at the end of last year, adding to that, naming the Covid-19 the (Chinese virus), as the US president Donald Trump and a number of US officials called it, which deteriorated highly the US and Chinese relations.
US fears that Beijing might violate the “zero power” standard in nuclear explosions were sparked by activities at the Lube Noor nuclear test site in 2019. The State Department said.
The term “zero power” refers to a nuclear test procedure that does not include any chain reaction with an explosion, such as the type used to detonate a nuclear warhead.
The 1996 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty allows the sort of activities that ensure the safety of nuclear weapons.
Nine countries in the world currently possess nuclear weapons – the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, the number of countries possessing the nuclear power are getting higher, and this threatens the worlds’ safety, the agreements restricting nuclear power are certainly done to avoid any nuclear war that might have unimaginable consequences on human kind, but on the other hand the number of countries possessing that power is also highly dangerous and problematic for countries without this kind of weapons.
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