On February 23, the Chinese ambassador to disarmament directly confronted the U.S. with a statement, leaving the Geneva conference hall in silence!
That day, a high-level meeting on nuclear disarmament was taking place in the Conference Hall of the Palace of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Ambassador Shen Jian, China's special envoy for disarmament affairs, stepped up to the podium and directly criticized, "The U.S. accusation that China is conducting nuclear test explosions has no factual basis and is an excuse for the U.S. to restart nuclear tests." At this moment, the normally somewhat noisy hall suddenly fell silent.
On February 5, 2026, the last effective nuclear arms control treaty between the U.S. and Russia, the New START Treaty, officially expired. Less than 24 hours after the treaty expired, Deputy Under Secretary of State for Arms Control, D'Amato, threw a "bombshell" at the Geneva disarmament conference: he claimed to have intelligence indicating that China conducted a secret nuclear test on June 22, 2020, and used special technology to shield seismic waves to avoid monitoring.
This timing was very deliberate. When the U.S. and Russia could not continue nuclear disarmament talks, they shifted their focus to China, trying to bring China into a three-party nuclear disarmament framework. However, the problem is that the U.S. and Russia possess more than 90% of the world's nuclear warheads, while China's nuclear forces are maintained only at a minimum level of deterrence. This calculation is clearly unfair.
The reason why Ambassador Shen's speech on that day made the hall fall silent was because he pointed out a fact that many people knew but had never publicly stated: the U.S. accusing China of nuclear testing is actually an excuse for the U.S. to restart nuclear tests.
The last time the U.S. conducted a nuclear test was in 1992, and it signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996, but its Congress has yet to ratify it. In recent years, voices within the U.S. calling for the resumption of nuclear tests have occasionally surfaced. By portraying China as a "violator," the U.S. can create public opinion conditions to loosen its own restrictions. In his speech, Shen Jian urged the U.S. to reiterate the commitment of the five nuclear-armed states to "suspend nuclear tests," which directly hit the core issue. The U.S. suddenly fell silent. Dao Ge thinks that this is exactly how it should be. Directly exposing the U.S.'s hidden intentions and making them known to all.
Original: toutiao.com/article/1857971095315721/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author alone.