AT THE EDGE OF A NEW NUCLEAR ARMS RACE

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In mid-April, a report issued by the United States State Department on “Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments (Compliance Report)” raised concerns that China might be conducting nuclear tests with low yields at its Lop Nur test site, in violation of its Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) undertakings.
The U.S. report also claims that Russia has conducted nuclear weapons experiments that produced a nuclear yield and were inconsistent with ‘zero yield’ understanding underlying the CTBT
Russia and China have rejected the U.S.’s claims, but with growing rivalry among major powers the report is a likely harbinger of a new nuclear arms race which would also mark the demise of the CTBT that came into being in 1996 but has failed to enter into force even after a quarter century.

For decades, a ban on nuclear testing was seen as the necessary first step towards curbing the nuclear arms race but Cold War politics made it impossible.
By the time the CTBT negotiations began in Geneva in 1994, The Cold War had ended and the nuclear arms race was over.
In 1991, Russia declared a unilateral moratorium on testing, followed by the U.S. in 1992.
France and China continued testing, claiming that they had conducted far fewer tests.
France and the U.S. even toyed with the idea of a CTBT that would permit testing at a low threshold, below 500 tonnes of TNT equivalent.
Some countries proposed that the best way to verify a comprehensive test ban would be to permanently shut down all test sites, an idea that was unwelcome to the nuclear weapon states.
Eventually, the U.S. came up with the idea of defining the “comprehensive test ban” as a “zero yield” test ban that would prohibit supercritical hydro-nuclear tests but not sub-critical hydrodynamic nuclear tests.
U.K. and France came on board and Russia and China came to accept this understanding.
The CTBT prohibits all parties from carrying out “any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion”; these terms are neither defined nor elaborated.

India’s proposals for anchoring the CTBT in a disarmament framework did not find acceptance, in June 1996, India announced its decision to withdraw from the negotiations.
Unhappy at this turn, the U.K., China and Pakistan took the lead in revising the entry-into-force provisions.
The new provisions listed 44 countries by name whose ratification was necessary for the treaty to enter into force and included India.
India protested that this attempt at arm-twisting violated a country’s sovereign right to decide if it wanted to join a treaty but was ignored.
The CTBT was adopted by a majority vote and opened for signature.
Of the 44 listed countries, to date only 36 have ratified the treaty.
China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and the U.S. have signed but not ratified.
China maintains that it will only ratify it after the U.S. does.
In addition, North Korea, India and Pakistan are the three who have not signed. All three have also undertaken tests after 1996; India and Pakistan in May 1998 and North Korea six times between 2006 and 2017.
The CTBT has therefore not entered into force and lacks legal authority.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO) is an international organisation to verify the CTBT which was established in Vienna.
The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO) runs an elaborate verification system built around a network of over 325 seismic, radionuclide, infrasound and hydroacoustic (underwater) monitoring stations.
The U.S. is the largest contributor to the organisation.

The U.S. now identifies Russia and China as “rivals”.
Its Nuclear Posture Review asserts that the U.S. faces new nuclear threats because both Russia and China are increasing their reliance on nuclear weapons.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) limits U.S. and Russian arsenals but will expire in 2021.

Both China and Russia have dismissed the U.S.’s allegations, pointing to the Trump administration’s backtracking from other negotiated agreements such as the Iran nuclear deal or the U.S.-Russia Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
Tensions with China are already high with trade and technology disputes, militarisation in the South China Sea and most recently, with the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Resumption of nuclear testing may signal the demise of the ill-fated CTBT, marking the beginnings of a new nuclear arms race.