“The United States has persistently distorted and smeared China’s nuclear policy,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said on Wednesday.

The pushback was in response to a statement by Thomas DiNanno, US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, in Geneva on Friday.

“The US government is aware that China has conducted nuclear explosive tests, including preparing for tests with designated yields in the hundreds of tonnes,” DiNanno said, adding that one of such “yield-producing tests” was conducted on June 22, 2020.

The People’s Liberation Army “sought to conceal testing by obfuscating the nuclear explosions” because it recognised that these tests violated test ban commitments, he said, without specifying where the tests allegedly took place.

“China has used ‘decoupling’, a method to decrease the effectiveness of seismic monitoring, to hide its activities from the world.”