As arms agreements fray, China secretly expands its nuclear weapons infrastructure | CNN

When three villagers from China’s Sichuan province wrote to local officials in 2022 asking why the government was confiscating their land and evicting them from their homes, they received a terse reply: It was a “state secret.” That secret, a CNN investigation has found, centered on China’s covert plans to massively expand its nuclear ambitions. More than three years after the evictions, satellite images show, their village has been flattened and, in its place, new buildings erected to support some of China’s most important nuclear weapons production facilities. The expansion of the sites in Sichuan province, observed in satellite imagery and a review of dozens of Chinese government documents, supports recent claims by the administration of US President Donald Trump that Beijing has been conducting its most significant nuclear weapon modernization campaign in decades. Trump is set to visit Beijing on a landmark trip next month where he is expected to try to begin a dialogue about a deal to curb Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s nuclear ambitions. Earlier this year, the latest arms reduction agreement between Russia and the United States – known as New START – expired, wit