July 29, 2026, marks 30 years since China announced that it would suspend nuclear testing, effective the following day. Maintaining that moratorium through repeated changes in the international security environment has given China’s nuclear policy a notable degree of stability, continuity, and predictability. Three decades of continuous observance have made the moratorium an enduring element of China’s nuclear policy and a sustained contribution to the international norm against nuclear testing. China states that it maintains its nuclear capabilities at the minimum level required for national security and has never deployed nuclear weapons on foreign territory. The history of nuclear testing helps explain why the concerns of non-nuclear-weapon states remain central to the test ban regime.