BEIJING, June 8. /TASS/. China urges the United States to abide by its international obligations and abandon plans to carry out nuclear tests, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a briefing on Monday.
"We insist that the United States should strictly abide by its obligations to end nuclear testing… and we hope that it will listen to the international community," the Chinese diplomat pointed out. "The US should abandon plans that could undermine global stability and strategic order," she added.
Hua Chunying emphasized that Beijing had repeatedly called on Washington to abandon attempts to conduct nuclear tests. "The US needs to contribute to international cooperation to ensure disarmament and the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," the Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson said.
The Washington Post wrote on May 22 that "the Trump administration has discussed whether to conduct the first US nuclear test explosion since 1992." "The matter came up at a meeting of senior officials representing the top national security agencies May 15, following accusations from administration officials that Russia and China are conducting low-yield nuclear tests — an assertion that has not been substantiated by publicly available evidence and that both countries have denied," the newspaper added. According to the Washington Post, "the meeting did not conclude with any agreement to conduct a test, but a senior administration official said the proposal is ‘very much an ongoing conversation’." Defense News reported later, citing Drew Walter, who is performing the duties of deputy assistant US secretary of defense for nuclear matters, that "a very quick test with limited diagnostics" could occur "within months" if ordered by the US president.