China allegedly conducted an underground nuclear test in June 2020, claimed a senior U.S. official, who offered new details regarding the blast Tuesday.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Yeaw told an event at the Hudson Institute think tank in Washington that a remote seismic station in Kazakhstan measured an "explosion" of magnitude 2.75 located 720 kilometers (450 miles) away at the Lop Nor test grounds in western China on June 22, 2020.
"I’ve looked at additional data since then. There is very little possibility, I would say that it is anything but an explosion, a singular explosion," said Yeaw, adding that the data were not consistent with mining blasts.
"It’s also entirely not consistent with an earthquake," said Yeaw, a former intelligence analyst and defense official, who holds a doctorate in nuclear engineering. "It is ... what you would expect with a nuclear explosive test."
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, which is charged with detecting nuclear test explosions, said that there was insufficient data to confirm Yeaw's allegation with confidence.
