US and China discussed mutual nuclear facility visits, CNN reports

The Trump administration and China have discussed exchanging visits to each other's nuclear-related facilities, CNN reported, citing multiple sources, with Washington planning to pursue the idea at face-to-face meetings in the coming months, according to reports by Yonhap and Hankook Ilbo. [ 1 , 2 ]

The talks are informal and at an early stage, and China raised the idea first at meetings between US and Chinese officials this year, the reports said. Under discussion are visits to national laboratories under the US Department of Energy and equivalent Chinese facilities, the sources said, and the US side is also willing to discuss mutual visits to nuclear test sites. Yonhap said the nuclear working-level contacts took place on the sidelines of a UN Security Council permanent five (P5) meeting. Newsis carried the same core claim in its headline, that the two sides are discussing mutual nuclear facility visits and that China proposed first. [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]

The discussions are taking place after New START, the last US-Russia treaty limiting nuclear weapons, expired on Feb 5, leaving no treaty capping US and Russian arsenals. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in February that the US, China and Russia should negotiate a new arms control deal limiting warhead numbers, the reports said. President Donald Trump expressed support for three-way arms control talks at last month's summit with Xi Jinping, but a US official said the facility visit issue was not discussed at that meeting, according to the reports. [ 1 , 2 ]

Xi has pointed to the far larger US and Russian arsenals and left little room for three-way talks, and China says it is difficult to join any discussion of limiting its warheads before its nuclear forces approach the US level, Yonhap reported. The US holds about 5,000 warheads against China's roughly 600, but China is expanding its nuclear infrastructure quickly and is expected to produce hundreds more warheads over the next decade, the reports said. [ 1 , 2 ]

The reports also carry US scepticism about China's intentions. Gerald Brown, a former State Department intelligence analyst, told CNN that China's continuing nuclear buildup is deeply tied to political goals, including aggressive ambitions toward Taiwan, and that China has historically treated nuclear negotiations as a means of extracting political concessions on Taiwan. [ 1 , 2 ]

On testing, the Trump administration has claimed that China conducted a secret nuclear test in 2020 using a “decoupling” method intended to avoid seismic detection, the reports said. The National Nuclear Security Administration said it carried out a 16-ton underground non-nuclear explosion at the Nevada National Security Site last week to verify its ability to detect such tests; it was not a nuclear explosive test. A US official said the administration is also preparing verification measures for covert low-yield nuclear tests and could share them with P5 countries by the end of the year. [ 1 , 2 ]

CNN said further working-level discussions on mutual facility visits are expected before Trump and Xi meet twice more this year, and that if realised the visits could build mutual trust and serve as groundwork for US-China-Russia arms control talks, the reports said. [ 1 , 2 ]