The United States has renewed its call for a trilateral nuclear arms dialogue with Russia and China, accusing Beijing of covert nuclear weapons testing and rapidly expanding its arsenal at a moment when global arms control frameworks are weakening.
Washington’s push comes just days after the formal expiration of the New START treaty, the last remaining agreement limiting nuclear warheads between the US and Russia. US officials warn that the absence of binding constraints risks triggering a new phase of nuclear competition among major powers.
China, however, reiterated that it does not intend to participate in nuclear disarmament negotiations under current conditions, maintaining a long-held position that its arsenal remains far smaller than those of Washington and Moscow. Beijing insists that responsibility for reductions lies primarily with the two largest nuclear powers.
Russia has taken a different stance, arguing that any future arms control framework should extend beyond the traditional US-Russia format to include other nuclear-armed states, including European powers such as Britain and France. This position underscores Moscow’s view that global strategic balance has shifted.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the era of bilateral nuclear agreements is effectively over. Writing in an online policy essay, Rubio argued that arms control must evolve to reflect a multipolar nuclear reality, with China’s growing capabilities making its inclusion unavoidable.
“Strategic stability cannot rest on just two countries,” Rubio wrote, pointing to China as having a particular responsibility due to the scale and pace of its weapons development.
The lapse of New START, which capped deployed nuclear warheads for both the United States and Russia at 1,550 each, marks the first time in decades that no treaty governs the world’s two largest nuclear stockpiles. Analysts say this legal vacuum could accelerate modernization and deployment without transparency or verification.
US President Donald Trump declined a proposal from Russian President Vladimir Putin to temporarily extend the treaty’s limits for another year. Instead, Trump has called for a broader, updated agreement that he said would better reflect current military realities and include additional nuclear powers.
Secret nuclear tests?
Thomas DiNanno, US under secretary of state for arms control, presented the new US plan Friday to the Conference on Disarmament at the United Nations in Geneva, charging that the lapsed New START treaty had “fundamental flaws”.
He accused China of taking advantage of the “legally-binding US-Russian restraint to begin expanding its arsenal at a historic pace”, maintaining that it was “on track to have over 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030”.
“As we sit here today, China’s entire nuclear arsenal has no limits, no transparency, no declarations, and no controls,” he said.
DiNanno also accused Beijing of conducting secret “nuclear explosive tests, including preparing for tests with designated yields in the hundreds of tonnes”.
He charged that one such test was conducted on June 22, 2020, and accused China of seeking “to conceal testing by obfuscating the nuclear explosions because it recognised these tests violate test ban commitments”.
Trump hinted at similar accusations late last year but without providing the same level of detail.
He said Washington wanted to resume testing nuclear weapons for the first time in decades “on an equal basis” with Moscow and Beijing but without elaborating and so far without following through.
Meanwhile, China’s ambassador Shen Jian slammed Washington on Friday for “making irresponsible remarks, for instance the threatening of making nuclear weapons tests”.
He also reiterated Beijing’s official position, insisting to the conference that “China would not participate in nuclear disarmament negotiations at this stage”.
“States possessing the largest nuclear arsenals should continue to fulfil their special and primary responsibilities for nuclear disarmament,” he added.
Russia and the United States together control more than 80 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads.
But China’s nuclear arsenal is growing faster than any other country, by about 100 new warheads a year since 2023, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Russia, which has said it no longer considers itself bound by New START limits, said any new nuclear talks should include other nuclear-armed states such as France and Britain, its ambassador Gennady Gatilov told Friday’s conference.
Britain’s ambassador, David Riley, appeared to dismiss the idea, saying “the United Kingdom maintains a minimum credible nuclear deterrent” and that arms control talks should focus on “those states with the largest nuclear arsenals – China, Russia and the US”.
French ambassador Anne Lazar-Sury meanwhile said Paris believed “credible measures capable of reducing the risk of nuclear weapons use” should be “the objective of all nuclear-armed states.”
With inputs from agencies
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