China rapidly expands nuclear test site as Trump revives Cold War tension

Cate Cadell

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President Donald Trump’s announcement this month that the United States would restart nuclear weapons testing on an “equal basis” with other nations — alluding to unverified claims that Moscow and Beijing are conducting secret tests and suggesting the U.S. will revive programs abandoned in the early 1990s — has sowed confusion among the world’s nuclear powers and revived echoes of the Cold War arms race.

While Moscow was quick to call for proposals on restarting its own nuclear weapons testing program, Beijing has stayed largely silent. But in the remote deserts of western China, the People’s Liberation Army has long been bracing for just this kind of threat.

In far western Xinjiang, satellite imagery and expert analysis show that China is rapidly expanding a historic nuclear test site, where it conducted its first atomic bomb test in 1964. The country’s military has quietly carved new tunnels, hollowed out explosive chambers and built support facilities that researchers say suggest preparations for nuclear testing.

Though China’s nuclear program remains years behind those of Russia and the United States, analysts say it is precisely that disparity that may be driving the apparent expansion of its testing facilities.

“Given the fact that China has conducted the smallest number of nuclear tests, it has much less empirical data. … China may have a need to conduct more experiments at either the subcritical level or through very low-yield supercritical testing to learn more about nuclear weapons,” said Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Behind China’s drive to expand its nuclear arsenal — the world’s third largest — is a broader strategy under President Xi Jinping to modernize the country’s military by 2030 and achieve a world‑class force by the middle of the century.

“China is increasingly interested in acquiring the capability to manage nuclear escalation at the regional level. … [It] has an incentive to develop lower-yield warheads, and that need may be part of what China is doing in the testing side,” Zhao said.