Dried up inland lake lop Nur
NASA
Us officials believe that China tested a nuclear weapon of low power, violating its obligations to the international community.
Secret testing of nuclear warheads of low power violates the Treaty on the comprehensive test ban Treaty (CTBT). The revitalization of the Chinese nuclear program, said in a classified Annex to the annual report, which will be published later, the state Department of the United States. This document refers to the newspaper the Wall Street Journal.
As says the publication, this document does not contain direct evidence that Beijing does not keep its promises to abide by the CTBT. However, the American side listed a number of aspects that cause concern Washington, including the intensification of work on the test site lop Nur in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous region in Northwest China. In addition, the United States argued that China in recent years, in some cases, stop the data transfer of special stations on its territory, designed to track changes in background radiation and seismic activity.
The newspaper has addressed for explanations to the Preparatory Commission of the Treaty Organization the comprehensive nuclear test ban (CTBTO preparatory Commission), which conducts the necessary arrangements for facilitating the entry into force of the CTBT and the establishment by the time of its launch verification mechanism. In the CTBTO preparatory Commission stated that from September 2019 to transfer the above mentioned data from China almost never interrupted.
Isolated cases recorded before this time, was by agreement of Beijing and the CTBTO preparatory Commission. “Transferring data from all certified stations was interrupted in 2018 after the completion of the process of testing, evaluation and certification. In August 2019, negotiations were completed with the Chinese operators of stations under contracts for the time after the expiry of the certification, after which the transfer of data from all five stations was resumed,” – said the official representative of the preparatory Commission.
The Treaty on comprehensive ban of nuclear tests was approved by the UN General Assembly on 24 September 1996, reports TASS. It prohibits test explosions of nuclear warheads as well as nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes. The ban applies to all areas (in the atmosphere, in outer space, under water and under ground) and is absolute and comprehensive. Now the contract has been ratified by 166 States, however, it has not entered into force since it has not ratified the USA, China, Egypt, Israel and Iran have not signed are India, Pakistan and North Korea.