China is rapidly expanding a secretive nuclear testing complex in its western desert just as President Donald Trump signals the United States may resume nuclear weapons testing for the first time in more than three decades.
The developments are stirring new global concern that the world's three largest nuclear powers are edging back toward a Cold War-style nuclear arms race, The Washington Post reported Monday.
Satellite images reviewed by independent experts show significant construction at China's historic Lop Nur nuclear site in Xinjiang — including new tunnels, vertical test shafts, support buildings, and expanded command facilities — all consistent with preparing for the possibility of future underground nuclear detonations.
"Given the fact that China has conducted the smallest number of nuclear tests, it has much less empirical data," Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Post.
"China may have a need to conduct more experiments at either the subcritical level or through very low-yield supercritical testing to learn more about nuclear weapons."
China's accelerated buildup aligns with President Xi Jinping's sweeping push to modernize the country's nuclear forces by 2030 and create a "world-class" military by midcentury, according to the Post report.
Analysts say Xi's strategy appears designed not only to narrow the technological gap with the United States and Russia but also to strengthen China's ability to control nuclear escalation in a regional conflict.
"China is increasingly interested in acquiring the capability to manage nuclear escalation at the regional level," Zhao continued, adding it "has an incentive to develop lower-yield warheads, and that need may be part of what China is doing in the testing side."
Trump's recent declaration — posted ahead of his meeting with Xi — that the U.S. will test nuclear weapons on an "equal basis" with China and Russia has added urgency to Beijing's preparations.
China has officially denied conducting any tests that violate the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and maintains a "no first use" policy. But U.S. intelligence agencies have long suspected low-yield testing at Lop Nur, and its dramatic physical expansion has intensified scrutiny.
"Altogether, this represents a dramatic expansion of infrastructure and dramatic expansion of overall testing capability at Lop Nur in the last five years," Renny Babiarz, vice president at AllSource Analysis, who tracks the site through geospatial monitoring, told the Post.
Construction since 2020 includes two newly drilled boreholes — likely for high-yield vertical test shafts — fresh road networks, extensive soil removal from horizontal tunnels used for low-yield testing, and increased electrical infrastructure. The site's central command hub has also grown significantly.
Despite the scale of activity, analysts caution this does not automatically signal China intends to conduct a nuclear-first strike.
Beijing continues to argue that its relatively small arsenal — projected to reach 1,000 warheads by 2030 — does not place it in the same category as the United States or Russia. Experts say China's opacity might be a deliberate strategic tool to keep adversaries uncertain.
Newsmax writer Eric Mack contributed to this report.
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