The US says Beijing has “significantly strengthened” its nuclear arsenal. When China might achieve 'nuclear parity'

A US government official on Monday accused China of “significantly strengthening” its nuclear arsenal, reiterating that Beijing is conducting secret tests, AFP and Agerpres report.

According to Washington, the expiration in early February of the New Start treaty – the last nuclear disarmament treaty between the US and Russia – offered the opportunity to reach a “better deal” that would include China. But Beijing has publicly rejected calls to join negotiations on a new trilateral treaty.

Christopher Yeaw, assistant secretary of state for arms control and non-proliferation, told the Geneva Conference on Disarmament on Monday that the New Start treaty had a major flaw.

“Its main flaw was probably that New Start failed to take into account the unprecedented, deliberate, rapid and opaque buildup of China's nuclear arsenal,” he said.

“Despite its denials, China has massively, deliberately and without coercion developed its nuclear arsenal without transparency or indication of its intentions or objectives,” he charged.

“We think Beijing could achieve nuclear parity within four or five years,” he added, without giving further details.

According to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a Nobel Peace Prize-winning coalition of NGOs, Russia and the US each possess more than 5,000 nuclear weapons.

The New Start treaty, which expired on February 5, limited the two countries to a maximum of 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads each — a threshold Washington says Beijing is fast approaching.

“Beijing is on track to have the fissile material needed to manufacture more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030,” Yeaw said.

“Moscow helps Beijing increase its arsenal”

The expiration of the New Start treaty marked the end of decades of binding limits on the planet's most destructive weapons, raising concerns of a new arms race.

Yeaw welcomed the expiration of the treaty, insisting that “its numerical limits on warheads and launchers are no longer relevant” given Russia's alleged violations of the treaty.

He also accused Moscow of helping to “strengthen Beijing's ability to increase its arsenal.”

“The expiration of the treaty has come at a crucial time,” he said, insisting it would allow US President Donald Trump to move toward his “ultimate goal: a better deal.”

“The expiration of the treaty and the current absence of any nuclear arms control treaty does not mean that the United States is withdrawing or ignoring arms control. Quite the contrary,” he said.

“Our goal is a better deal for a world with fewer nuclear weapons,” the US official said.