On the 60th anniversary of the nation’s first atomic weapon test, experts trace how policy, politics and purpose laid the foundation for China’s nuclear might.
New: You can now listen to articles.Sixty years ago, in the remote Lop Nur desert in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, China successfully detonated its first atomic bomb, code-named “Miss Qiu”.
The deal determined that the beginning of 1967 would be the cut-off date to identify and recognise countries with nuclear weapons as rightful “nuclear-weapon states” that had the privilege to possess the mass destructive weapon lawfully. Historian Zhang Jing of Peking University has suggested that the “tactical” gestures of defiance were intended to boost the Communist Party’s morale as civil war loomed in China, heightening fears the US may intervene and use atomic weapons.
With national strategy and policy set, recruitment of nuclear physicists like Deng Jiaxian and other scientists was soon underway. Research institutions were established and facilities were built, including the country’s first heavy water reactor and cyclotron. Uranium mines in the provinces of Jiangxi and Hunan also went into operation.
By August 1964, construction of the U-235 fuelled implosion bomb had been completed and Chinese intelligence reports suggested the Americans or even the Russians might have been considering taking action against China’s nuclear facilities. That was confirmed decades later in declassified US documents."Since it is for intimidation, better have it go off earlier," he ordered on Sep 20. The world heard the blast less than a month later.
Sixty years later, Sun Xiaobo, the foreign ministry’s director of the department of arms control told a UN meeting that “China has always and will continue to maintain its nuclear forces at the lowest level necessary for its national security.” Under that premise, Chinese leaders from Mao onwards have tended to stress the political significance of nuclear weapons, rather than regarding them as an actual military weapon to be deployed in a war, Zhang said.
“One of the important reasons why China’s reform and opening up policy was successful was the security guarantee and confidence the nuclear capabilities brought to China as a responsible major power,” Zhang said.As the massive lay-offs were under way, Deng told the PLA to “be patient for some years”.
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