China Asks Superpower Disarmament but Won’t Join Test Ban

China urged the United States and the Soviet Union on Wednesday to work toward disarmament but declined to commit itself to a ban on the testing of nuclear weapons.

“We believe the countries with the biggest nuclear arsenals have the responsibility to take the lead in nuclear disarmament,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Li Zhaoxing told a weekly news conference.

Li said that China has conducted “very few nuclear tests” and that its nuclear weapons program is intended strictly for defense. “China has repeated again and again that it will not be the first to use nuclear weapons,” he asserted.

U.S., Soviets Assailed

The statement came a day after Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang said his country will work toward “the complete prohibition” of nuclear weapons but labeled the United States and the Soviet Union the greatest obstacles to nuclear disarmament.

In a telegram sent to Japan on the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Zhao expressed deep sympathy for the victims of the bomb and said “China is ready to shoulder its due responsibility in efforts to attain the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons.”

The danger of nuclear war comes primarily from the superpowers, Zhao said, adding that the United States and the Soviet Union should “respect the strong feelings of the world’s people against nuclear weapons and the nuclear menace . . . and conduct serious talks on a drastic reduction of their nuclear arsenal.”

‘84 Underground Blast

China maintains a large nuclear research facility at Lop Nor, in the desert of northwestern Xinjiang province. The last time that U.S. Energy Department seismologists detected a nuclear explosion there was on Oct. 3, 1984, when China apparently conducted an underground test.

Asked last fall about the state of China’s nuclear weapons program, Jiang Xinxiong, the minister in charge of China’s nuclear industry, replied:

“As is the case with foreign countries, there is a continuous increase in the categories of China’s nuclear weapons. Their technological level and quality are also improving. It can be said that China has carried out few tests, but its nuclear weapons technology has reached quite an advanced level.”

Last week, the United States invited the Soviet Union to send observers to an underground nuclear test in Nevada. In response, the Soviet Union announced a five-month moratorium on nuclear testing and said it would extend the moratorium indefinitely if the Reagan Administration would agree. Each side rejected the other’s proposal.

When questioned Wednesday about whether China would go along with a moratorium on nuclear testing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Li replied, “We have taken note of the recent statements by the United States and the Soviet Union.”

Superpower Gap

He said China believes that there is a big gap between the United States and the Soviet Union on nuclear weapons issues and hopes that disarmament talks will go forward “in earnest.”

Since the beginning of this year, China has sought to link itself with campaigns for nuclear disarmament and has repeatedly called on the United States and the Soviet Union to begin reducing their nuclear arsenals--even though Peking itself has long refused to sign nuclear-proliferation or test-ban treaties.