US Accuses China of Secret Nuclear Testing | Hacker News Reader

US Accuses China of Secret Nuclear Testing

reuters.com

I smell skulduggery.

They say this was detected years ago, but they chose not to even say anything about it until "a day after the treaty limiting U.S. and Russian missile and warhead deployments expired"?

I don't buy it. I do buy that China has a lot more nukes than before, there doesn't seem be to be any disagreement about that, but "revealing" years-old tests now smells more like an excuse for US build-up than anything else.

The US started upgrading and modernizing its nuclear production capacity in earnest during the Biden administration, targeting a capacity of 80 weapons per year. It pre-dates the current administration by years.

This disclosure was pretty obviously intended to put international pressure on China to conform to norms on nuclear testing, while also letting them know that the US can detect their top secret nuclear tests despite their best efforts to hide them.

I'm sure the timing of the disclosure wasn't accidental but I don't see much nefarious about it. The US doesn't disclose their knowledge of this type of thing unless there is some geopolitical leverage in doing so, since it makes it easier for other countries to calibrate US intelligence capabilities.

It may also be because of the detection of Iodine-129 in seawater off the Philipines, which was eventually traced to the Yangtse River.

[0]: https://x.com/Rainmaker1973/status/2015081659805110532

America tests nukes and figures out the viability of its stockpile through sophisticated simulations right? Isn’t that what those supercomputers at DOE labs do? I can’t exactly blame other countries for testing however they can, if they don’t have the same capability. Especially in this day and age, where perhaps they fear military action from America and need to feel more confident about their deterrents.

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