CNN: China is secretly testing a new generation of nuclear weapons
American intelligence believes that China has begun to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons. Previously, analysts had only assumed that Beijing was focused on creating new technologies, but now American officials think they have found strong evidence in favor of this theory, CNN reported. This is not the first time that the United States has announced that China is expanding and modernizing its nuclear arsenal. Earlier, President Donald Trump said that Washington was returning to conducting nuclear tests because China and Russia were "conducting test explosions, but not talking about it."
American intelligence services believe that China is developing a new generation of nuclear weapons. This was reported by CNN, citing sources familiar with US intelligence data.
According to the interlocutors, China secretly conducted a nuclear test at the Lop Nur test site in the northwest of the country in June 2020, despite the moratorium on such activities imposed in 1996, and planned to conduct several more experiments in the future. American intelligence believes that this indicates Beijing's intentions to create "next-generation nuclear weapons," including using several miniaturized nuclear warheads inside a single missile.
According to CNN, earlier US intelligence agencies reported that China was actively expanding its nuclear facilities, and analysts suspected that Beijing may have focused on developing new technologies. Now, U.S. officials believe that there is solid evidence to support this theory.
"Investments in the nuclear arsenal bring China closer to the status of equal to Russia and the United States and can provide technical capabilities that none of the two dominant nuclear powers currently possess," the TV channel noted.
The Third Nuclear Age
This is not the first time that the American authorities have said that Beijing has begun to modernize its nuclear arsenal. Back in October 2025, when US President Donald Trump announced that Washington was going to resume nuclear tests, he justified this by saying that other countries were conducting them. A little later, in an interview with CBS News, the head of the White House said that China and Russia "are conducting test explosions, but they are not talking about it."
Then in November, the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal wrote about the beginning of a new arms race between the United States, Russia and China, in which Beijing, not bound by any restrictions, is "quietly but rapidly" moving forward. The publication noted at the time that, according to American experts, by 2030 China would reach approximate parity with the United States in terms of the number of deployed nuclear warheads.
In February, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Dinanno, who is responsible for arms control and international security, said that Washington was aware that China was conducting nuclear test explosions, "including preparations for tests with a declared capacity of hundreds of tons." According to Dinanno, Beijing allegedly uses the "decapling" method, which makes it possible to weaken the seismic effect of a nuclear explosion. In this case, the explosion is carried out underground so that the shock wave, reflected from the walls of the cavity, remains "locked" and creates only minor seismic waves. According to the Deputy Secretary of State, one of these tests was conducted on June 22, 2020.
Beijing, in turn, denies this information. The Chinese Foreign Ministry previously stated that such accusations "have no factual basis."
China's Nuclear Arsenal
The development of nuclear energy in China began in the 1950s. The USSR initially actively contributed to the development of the country's nuclear program: in 1955, the countries signed an agreement that provided for joint geological research in China and the development of uranium mines, and in 1957, an agreement providing for the transfer of nuclear weapons manufacturing technology to China. In addition, about 10,000 Soviet nuclear industry specialists visited China in the period 1950-1960. At the same time, approximately 11,000 Chinese specialists and 1,000 scientists were trained and trained in the USSR.
The first nuclear bomb test in China took place in 1964. Today, Beijing does not officially disclose information about its arsenal. At the same time, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, by March 2023, China had 410 nuclear warheads. In 2025, analysts at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found out that Beijing already had about 600 warheads.
Eva Vishnevskaya
