On October 6, CNN reported that the United States and China are engaged in informal, preliminary discussion on reciprocal visits to nuclear facilities. According to the report, the idea was first raised by the Chinese side in meetings with U.S. officials this year, during which the two sides discussed U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories and their Chinese counterparts. The same source also indicated that the U.S. side is willing to discuss visits to nuclear test sites. 

At the China-U.S. leaders’ summit held in September, the two sides agreed to build “a constructive relationship of strategic stability on the basis of respect, fairness, and reciprocity.” According to CNN, however, they didn’t discuss reciprocal nuclear facility visits at the summit.

Reciprocal laboratory visits could serve to test the feasibility of limited nuclear transparency and give the broad political goal of “strategical stability” something concrete to work on. The question is whether the two sides can learn about each other’s nuclear institutions, their roles, and some of their activities, without harming their own national security. 

In the mid-1990s, the United States and China set up the “U.S.-China Lab-to-Lab Technical Exchange Program” (CLL). Nuclear weapons laboratories under the U.S. Department of Energy and Chinese institutions including the China Academy of Engineering Physics participated in the project. The exchanges were conducted by scientists from both countries responsible for the technical management of nuclear forces, under the supervision of both governments, and were initially limited to nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. The program listed a shared goal: the exchange of information about the operation and management of nuclear facilities, while safeguarding the national security interests of both countries. 

China hosted American scientists at its nuclear weapon laboratory and the Lop Nur test site, and showed them a variety of facilities. According to a U.S. participant, the United States authorized only small scale, restricted exchange on nuclear material protection and nuclear arms control verification technologies. Although the U.S. side had initially expressed a willingness to host Chinese scientists at the Nevada Test Site on a reciprocal basis, it withdrew that commitment later. 

The two sides also ran into other obstacles. In 1996, for example, regarding a joint analysis plan for seismic data from mining activities on both sides, the China Academy of Engineering Physics declined to participate because the work was outside its scope. The Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology also declined, out of concern that the data might be used to estimate the yields of China’s past nuclear tests. 

In the late 1990s, the program was halted as China-U.S. relations worsened. In particular, a 1999 U.S. Congressional report accused China of stealing nuclear technology, which Beijing allegedly used “to fabricate and successfully test its next generation of nuclear weapons designs.” Scientists from both sides tried to revive the program during the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, without success.

This history shows that laboratory exchanges were a form of contact China and the United States have tried before, where information sharing and confidentiality requirements coexisted. While the experience of the 1990s cannot directly explain China’s current motivation for reviving the idea of reciprocal visits to nuclear facilities, it left a precedent. Whether the concept of reciprocal visits described in the CNN report aligns with the experience of such limited exchanges needs to be considered together with China’s current position on nuclear transparency.

China’s official position stresses transparency of intentions, but it also insists on protecting national security. The 2025 White Paper on Arms Control stated: “Given the current international security situation, transparency in intentions and policies is the most practical significance.” The 2026 NPT Compliance Report noted, however, that “inappropriate transparency may also undermine strategic stability” and advocated that nuclear weapon states should raise transparency step by step, in accordance with their own security environments and actual circumstances. 

The report also noted that in March 2026, China organized a visit by permanent representatives to the United Nations, disarmament ambassadors, and high-level representatives from nearly 20 countries to the decommissioned 816 nuclear facility in Chongqing. Beijing included this in the section on “transparency and confidence-building measures.” A visit to a decommissioned facility does not prove that China would open an active nuclear weapon laboratory in the same way. But it shows that China already uses facility visits as a way to explain its nuclear policy to other countries.

Visits to active laboratories, however, may sit in a middle ground between policy transparency and transparency about nuclear forces. Nuclear weapons research institutions also undertake specialized work in areas such as arms control and nonproliferation. The earlier CLL program set out to explore ways of sharing selected information about nuclear materials and facilities while protecting sensitive national security information. The exchanges at that time covered how a nuclear weapons research institution can organize its arms control work, staff its operations, and carry out management. These issues go beyond a nuclear policy statement, but there is no need to discuss the number of warheads, deployment locations, or readiness status. 

In addition, professional exchanges among nuclear agencies can foster a better understanding of each other’s working methods. Following the 1997 CLL program export control workshop, a Chinese representative stated that the workshop had given him a clearer understanding of the functional relationships among the U.S. government, laboratories, and technical experts. If the new reciprocal visits include such substantive dialogue, the laboratories could serve as a starting point for limited transparency: providing access to institutions and personnel in the nuclear field without immediately delving into discussions regarding the numbers, deployment and use of nuclear forces.

Such professional engagement could also become part of China-U.S. strategic nuclear dialogue. Chinese expert Li Bin has suggested that strategic nuclear dialogue could take place at various levels and involve different partners, and that Track 1.5 dialogue could include diplomatic departments, the military, and nuclear weapons laboratories. He also stressed that transparency should be a tool for achieving strategic stability.

Finding a form of openness that both sides can accept is only the first step. Laboratory visits could also allow each side to ask direct questions about specific work and hear the other side explain the purposes of its activities and technical judgments. If these discussions can correct misunderstandings and are carried forward by participants into their respective policy debates, they may reduce overreactions stemming from misreading. This is also where limited transparency can contribute to strategic stability.

Laboratory visits will not automatically resolve the conflict between nuclear strategy and the security interests of China and the United States. But they could serve as a limited test for the China-U.S. nuclear relationship in a new period. While the two sides still disagree on the size of nuclear forces, deployment, and the path of arms control, can they first exchange meaningful information on certain technical issues and keep talking afterward? If so, this limited transparency could provide a concrete example of the “strategic stability” called for by the leaders of both countries.