China This Week | Trump’s ‘excellent’ call with Xi, and US claims of secret Chinese nuclear test

A US official claimed this week that China carried out a secret nuclear test back in June 2020. If true, it would mean that the test happened weeks after the Galwan Valley clash between soldiers of the Indian Army and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in eastern Ladakh. Without directly addressing the claims, an official Chinese spokesperson said it was the United States that was “aggravating” the arms race. The comments were also made in a week when US President Donald Trump posted on social media about a “long and thorough” phone conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump reiterated his plans to visit China in April, among other things, while a Chinese official statement about the call said that Xi emphasised the “Taiwan question” as the “most important issue in China-U.S. relations.” Earlier in the week, we also detailed UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s visit to China — the first such visit in eight years. It came on the heels of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney making a similar trip to Beijing after a period of chill in China-Canada relations. Here is a closer look at these developments: ## 1. Trump-Xi’s call In his Truth Social post, Trump said subjects discussed in their “excellent” call included trade, military, the April trip “(which I very much look forward to!)”, Taiwan, the Ukraine-Russia war, and Iran. On trade, Trump mentioned China committing to purchasing oil and additional agricultural products (specifically, soybeans) from the US. “The relationship with China, and my personal relationship with President Xi, is an extremely good one, and we both realize how important it is to keep it that way,” Trump wrote. Meanwhile, the official readout from China noted “sound communication” between the countries over the past year. It made special mention of Taiwan as China’s territory. “China must safeguard its own sovereignty and territorial integrity, and will never allow Taiwan to be separated. The U.S. must handle the issue of arms sales to Taiwan with prudence,” it said. Further, it reported Trump as saying that he understood “how China feels about the Taiwan question.” UPSHOT: Trump and Xi have spoken multiple times over the last year, especially on trade. In line with the wider policy under Trump, the US has sought a market for its agricultural products and US energy (similar to what it has asked of India). Notably, China reiterated Taiwan’s importance in this call. While this is something that China often does in formal conversations with countries, Taiwan was not mentioned in the statement from the two leaders’ meeting in Busan last year, which was the first after the tariffs saga began. It points to the difference in the countries’ order of priorities. For China, since the inception of its diplomatic ties with the US in 1979, Taiwan has been a central issue. Under Xi, its claims have only been advocated for more strongly. Trump, however, has claimed that a Taiwan invasion was unlikely to happen while he was in office. Taiwan also finds a mention soon after the US agreed to sell weapons worth a record $11.1 billion to Taiwan late last year, prompting China to undertake a large military drill around the island. 2. China’s secret nuclear tests Reuters reported a US official making claims about China’s tests at an arms control conference, despite the country’s past statements of a moratorium on nuclear tests. Officially, it last conducted nuclear tests in July 1996. “I can reveal that the U.S. government is aware that China has conducted nuclear explosive tests, including preparing for tests with designated yields in the hundreds of tons,” US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Thomas DiNanno said in Geneva. Adding that the test was conducted on June 22, 2020, he said the Chinese military “sought to conceal testing by obfuscating the nuclear explosions because it recognised these tests violate test ban commitments. China has used ‘decoupling’, a method to decrease the effectiveness of seismic monitoring, to hide their activities from the world.” According to The Washington Post, he also claimed that Russia was assisting China “in developing the weapons-grade fissile material needed to fuel its nuclear arsenal.” Shen Jian, China’s ambassador on disarmament, was quoted by Reuters as saying that “China notes that the U.S. continues in its statement to hype up the so-called China nuclear threat. China firmly opposes such false narratives.” He said, “It (the U.S.) is the culprit for the aggravation of the arms race.” UPSHOT: The comments came in the same week that the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) post-Cold War agreement signed between the US and Russia expired. Officials from both countries have spoken about the need for new limitations on the world’s most dangerous weapons, but the US has flagged the need to include China going forward. China has a much smaller arsenal than the US and Russia. For the US, however, its exclusion still matters. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently said, “China’s rapid and opaque expansion of its nuclear arsenal since New START entered into force has rendered past models of arms control, based upon bilateral agreements between the United States and Russia, obsolete. Since 2020, China has increased its nuclear weapons stockpile from the low 200s to more than 600 and is on pace to have more than 1,000 warheads by 2030. An arms control arrangement that does not account for China’s build-up, which Russia is supporting, will undoubtedly leave the United States and our allies less safe.” Rishika Singh is a deputy copyeditor at the Explained Desk of The Indian Express. She enjoys writing on issues related to international relations, and in particular, likes to follow analyses of news from China. Additionally, she writes on developments related to politics and culture in India. ... Read More