China Conducts Underground Nuclear Test

[norman@charlotte.med.nyu.edu (Norman Cohen)]

The report below is from the China News Digest (CND) WWW Server.

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Reported by: Weijun LIU, Hong TANG, Jian LIU

[CND, 05/16/95] -- China exploded an underground nuclear device on Monday,
Reuter reported.

According to the Australian Seismological Center in Canberra, the explosion
took place at 0405 GMT (around midnight EDT), presumably at Lop Nor test
site, Xinjiang.  The blast was recorded about 5.9 in magnitude on the
Richter scale, and estimated to be of the destructive power of 40 to 150
kilotons of TNT.  China conducted its last nuclear on October 7, 1994.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman acknowledged the test without specifying its
time, location and nature, and repeated that China "stands for the complete
prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons."

Monday's explosion drew prompt protests from international communities.  The
White House expressed U.S. government's strong disapproval of the recent
test, and urged China to "refrain from further nuclear test."  Japan
immediately issued a formal protest.  Vice Foreign Minister Kunihiko Saito
warned China in a news conference that the test could damage the
Sino-Japanese relation, including Japanese multi-billion dollar economic
assistance to China. Kazakhstan, the neighboring country only several
hundred miles away from Lop Nor test site, strongly urged Chinese government
to stop any kind of nuclear test.  "The Kazakhstani people will suffer (from
such tests)," said the deputy foreign minister Vyacheslav Gizzatov. Canada
and Australia also expressed their displeasure at the test.

The test was conducted four days after China agreed with 177 other nations
to extend the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty indefinitely. However, the
treaty does not ban nuclear tests by the five existing nuclear powers. In
France, different political forces argue on whether the country should
resume its nuclear tests.  Possessing the least nuclear arsenal among the
five, China will likely to continue to carry out such tests until a new
treaty banning all tests is signed.  The other four nuclear powers, the US,
Russian, Britain and France, are observing a worldwide moratorium on nuclear
testing that has been honored by other nuclear powers since 1992.  It is
expected that China will conduct four more nuclear tests by the end of 1996.

China also repeatedly promises that it will not use nuclear force first in
any conflicts.



 Norman Cohen, Ph.D.
 Radiation Studies
 New York University Medical Center
 Nelson Institute of Environmental Medicine

 (914) 351-4368
 E-mail norman@charlotte.med.nyu.edu

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Date: Fri, 19 May 1995 14:45:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: MING ZHU <mingzhu@engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Chinese bomb test.

Is it a underground test?

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Ming Zhu
Radiological Health Engineering
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
(313)747-0665