By Yue Shui

At the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on August 11, 2026, the United States groundlessly accused China of failing to provide timely and sufficient notification regarding a test launch of a nuclear submarine-based strategic missile conducted in July this year. This accusation disregards the facts, as China had notified relevant countries prior to the test launch. China's missile tests within its own territory and on the high seas fully comply with relevant provisions of international law.

This US provocation is no isolated incident, but rather another example of its excessive "concern" and "anxiety" over the development of China's nuclear ability in recent years. In April 2023, the US Department of State released its Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments report, accusing China of a lack of transparency in its nuclear testing activities. In August 2025, Washington asked China to join so-called "trilateral nuclear disarmament talks with the United States and Russia," attempting to drag China into a negotiation framework in which the sizes of the nuclear arsenals are completely disproportionate. In February 2026, a senior US Department of State official once again groundlessly questioned China over alleged secret nuclear tests. These consecutive allegations, far from being driven by genuine concern for global nuclear security, reflect Washington's "strategic anxiety" over the normal development of China's nuclear ability.

However, while pointing fingers at China, the US is actively bolstering its own nuclear forces. A report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) shows that US nuclear weapons spending reached USD 56.8 billion in 2024, exceeding the combined expenditures of all other nuclear-armed states. In January 2026, the Pentagon released a new edition of its National Defense Strategy, explicitly listing nuclear force modernization as a core task and proposing a comprehensive upgrade of its nuclear triad deterrence system. This double standard, wielding the moral cudgel against other nations while aggressively expanding its own nuclear arsenal, vividly exemplifies the hegemonic logic of "allowing the magistrate to burn down houses while forbidding the common folk to light lamps."

The US nuclear threat to the world is further manifested in its repeated role as a driving force behind nuclear proliferation. Evidence indicates that despite Japan adopting the "Three Non-Nuclear Principles" in the 1970s—not possessing, not manufacturing, and not permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons—the US secretly reached a nuclear pact with Japan, allowing US vessels, submarines and aircraft carrying nuclear weapons to enter or transit through Japanese territory, territorial waters, and airspace under specified conditions. The existence of this secret pact has rendered Japan's "Three Non-Nuclear Principles" largely a dead letter. In 2019, the US unilaterally withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, paving the way for the deployment of intermediate-range missile systems in the Asia-Pacific and Europe and severely disrupting regional strategic stability. In 2021, the US, UK, and Australia announced the establishment of AUKUS and decided to provide Australia with nuclear submarine technology, a move widely regarded by the international community as a blatant challenge to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and one that set a dangerous precedent for the proliferation of nuclear submarine technology.

Saying one thing while doing another, the US possesses the world's most advanced and largest nuclear arsenal, yet makes groundless accusations against China's normal defense buildup while repeatedly hyping up the so-called "China nuclear threat." Its underlying anxiety, however, is nothing more than the fear that the development of China's nuclear ability will challenge US nuclear hegemony.

China remains committed to the path of peaceful development, pursues a nuclear strategy of self-defense, keeps its nuclear ability at the minimum level required for national security, and never engages in any form of nuclear arms race. It is the US itself that truly needs to reflect on its own conduct. As the world's foremost nuclear power, rather than expending energy fabricating excuses and smearing other nations, the US ought to earnestly fulfill its special and primary responsibility for nuclear disarmament and do more to truly contribute to world peace and stability.

Editor's note: Originally published on china.com.cn, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.