US officials said the United States will visit Chinese nuclear research facilities and China has agreed to reciprocate at equivalent sites, including DOE national laboratories, as part of a confidence‑building initiative.
The move follows U.S. concerns over China’s rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal after the U.N. Security Council’s last arms‑control agreement with Russia expired in 2025, leaving a vacuum in international nuclear oversight.
Former acting assistant secretary of state Paul Dean, now vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, warned that the administration must approach the talks with “eyes wide open” and praised the visits as “an extremely valuable confidence‑building measure” that could pave the way for further risk‑reduction measures.
Officials expect lower‑level negotiations to finalize the logistics of the visits before the Trump‑Xi meeting at the APEC summit in November or the G20 summit in December, setting dates and protocols that will establish the first tangible framework for transparency.