ISTANBUL

China on Wednesday accused the United States of attempting to resume nuclear tests after Washington alleged that Beijing conducted nuclear explosive tests in 2020.

“The US has kept distorting and vilifying China’s nuclear policy as part of its political manipulation to seek nuclear hegemony,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters in Beijing.

Lin said the US allegation that China conducted nuclear explosive tests in 2020 “has no factual ground at all.”

“China opposes the US fabricating pretext for its own attempt to resume nuclear tests,” he said.

The remarks came after Thomas DiNanno, the US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, told a disarmament forum in Geneva last week that China “conducted nuclear explosive tests, including preparing for tests with designated yields in the hundreds of tons.”

“China has used decoupling -- a method to decrease the effectiveness of seismic monitoring -- to hide its activities from the world. China conducted one such yield producing nuclear test on June 22, 2020,” DiNanno said.

Lin rejected the accusation and said Washington was shifting responsibility for nuclear disarmament onto others, which China “firmly rejects.”

“Let me stress that the US is the biggest disruptor to international nuclear order and global strategic stability,” he said.

Referring to the expiration of the New START treaty between the US and Russia last week, Lin said Washington “did nothing about it,” eroding trust among major powers and dealing “a severe blow to global strategic stability.”

He accused the US of maintaining a first-use nuclear policy, spending trillions of dollars to upgrade its nuclear triad, building a global anti-missile system, deploying strategic assets and applying double standards on nuclear nonproliferation.

“These moves seriously disrupt global strategic balance and stability and undermine international and regional peace and security,” Lin said.

He added that China hopes the US will resume dialogue with Russia on strategic stability to discuss arrangements following the treaty’s expiration.

The US allegations came after President Donald Trump last October ordered the American military to immediately resume the process for testing nuclear weapons.

The claims have also been disputed by a nuclear monitoring body. Robert Floyd, executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, said last Friday that the organization’s monitoring system “did not detect any event consistent with the characteristics of a nuclear weapon test explosion” at the time cited by the US.

“The assessment remains unchanged after further detailed analyses,” Floyd said, according to Al Jazeera.

Both the US and China have signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which bans explosive nuclear tests. Russia ratified the treaty but withdrew in 2023.

China last conducted an underground nuclear test on July 29, 1996, while the US carried out its last test on Sept. 23, 1992.