The disclosure by US officials recently of an alleged Chinese nuclear test conducted in 2020 has added a new layer of uncertainty to an already fragile global nuclear order. According to Washington, Beijing carried out a “yield-producing” nuclear explosive test at the Lop Nur site in Xinjiang on June 22, 2020, just days after the Galwan Valley clash with India. If accurate, the episode would represent a significant departure from China's long-standing adherence to the global testing moratorium and raises uncomfortable questions about the credibility of existing arms control arrangements.
The charge that China employed decoupling techniques to conceal the test underlines a broader concern in US strategic thinking: that opacity and selective norm compliance are becoming defining features of China's nuclear behaviour. Although China signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996, it has never ratified it, and the alleged test - involving relatively low yields designed to evade detection - suggests a willingness to exploit the grey zones of international verification regimes. Whether or not the claim is ultimately substantiated, its political impact is already evident.
The Timing Is Something
The timing of the disclosure is telling. It coincides with the expiration of the US-Russia New START treaty in February 2026, leaving the global nuclear order without binding limits on the world's two largest arsenals for the first time in decades. By foregrounding the 2020 test allegation, Washington has sought to strengthen its long-standing argument that bilateral arms control frameworks are increasingly inadequate in a multipolar nuclear environment. China's rapid arsenal expansion, coupled with its refusal to join arms control negotiations on the grounds of numerical disparity, has reinforced US concerns that strategic stability can no longer be managed through Cold War-era constructs.
For Beijing, these accusations fit a familiar narrative. China has dismissed them as politically motivated attempts to exaggerate a “China threat” and justify greater pressure for trilateral arms control talks. Yet, China's own actions - ranging from the construction of new ICBM silo fields to advances in hypersonic delivery systems - have fuelled doubts about its stated commitment to minimum deterrence. The perception that China is moving towards a more robust and flexible nuclear posture, aimed at ensuring survivability against multiple adversaries, has further eroded confidence in the sustainability of existing arms control norms.
The Problem For India
The implications extend well beyond a US-China strategic competition. For India, the alleged 2020 test carries particular resonance. Its timing - immediately following the Galwan crisis - feeds into concerns in New Delhi about China's use of military signalling across multiple domains during periods of heightened tensions. India's nuclear doctrine of no-first-use and credible minimum deterrence has long been calibrated against a relatively restrained Chinese posture. China's accelerating nuclear modernisation, however, threatens to widen the asymmetry between the two sides, complicating India's deterrence calculations.
New Delhi's response has been measured but deliberate. Since 2020, India has focused on enhancing survivability and credibility rather than numerical expansion - advancing canisterised missile systems, strengthening sea-based deterrence, and exploring MIRV capabilities. While official policy continues to reaffirm NFU, debates within India's strategic community increasingly reflect unease about its adequacy in the face of a more capable and potentially less predictable Chinese nuclear force. The US allegations, by highlighting China's opacity, indirectly reinforce India's case for continued modernisation within a restrained doctrinal framework.
More broadly, the episode illustrates how ambiguity in one state's nuclear behaviour can reverberate across regions. It weakens confidence in arms control, accelerates competitive modernisation, and heightens the risk of miscalculation - particularly in Asia, where unresolved territorial disputes intersect with evolving nuclear capabilities. In the absence of renewed transparency and more inclusive frameworks, the global nuclear order is likely to become more fragmented, less predictable, and far harder to stabilise.
The Old Nuclear Order Is Dying
The dysfunctionality of global nuclear arms control is evident because the political and strategic conditions that once sustained it have eroded. The Cold War system rested on a relatively stable bipolar balance, shared rules, and an acceptance of mutual vulnerability between the superpowers. Today's nuclear landscape is far more fragmented, marked by the rise of China, regional nuclear rivalries, and disruptive technologies such as hypersonic weapons, missile defence, and cyber capabilities. Intensifying great-power competition has hollowed out trust, led to treaty erosion, and weakened verification regimes. As nuclear weapons regain salience as instruments of power, arms control has become a victim of strategic rivalry rather than a constraint upon it.
(Harsh V Pant is Vice President, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
