CLAWS Journal l Winter 2013 79
The Political History of
China’s Nuclear Bomb
Monika Chansoria
To begin with, it has been a matter of great interest as to how such a
sophisticated technological, military feat was ultimately accomplished
by a poverty-stricken nation with limited industrial and scientific
resources. This can be considered as being extraordinary, especially
in the midst of the enormous internal political turmoil of the Great
Leap Forward in China. In the backdrop of China’s emergence as
a modern nuclear power, there arose a need to chronicle the policy
changes within China with Mao Zedong originally formulating the
revolutionary struggle in terms of a “people’s war”, deriding the
bomb as a paper tiger in 1946. However, with the development of
modern nuclear bombs and missiles, Mao recast the struggle into
one with a military-technical emphasis that relied on assured nuclear
retaliation to ensure deterrence. The realisation that nuclear weapons
allowed the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to take diplomatic and
military positions with a much greater level of confidence dawned,
thus, ending up redefining China’s quest for security.
Chinese analysts and thinkers define sovereignty rigidly despite
the fashion for modifying the principle of national independence
to accommodate international organisations and global commerce.
Chinese officials speak passionately about the humiliation that China
Dr Monika Chansoria is Senior Fellow and Head of the China-study project, Centre for Land
Warfare Studies, New Delhi.
80 	 CLAWS Journal l Winter 2013
suffered at the hands of the European
powers during the 19th
century and about
their country’s determination never to
repeat the experience.1
Chinese leaders
wish to obtain as much international
influence as they can, so as to settle as many
disputes as possible on their own terms. In
the words of Col Peng Guangqian of the
People’s Liberation Army (PLA), “The
development of modern China cannot
be separated from the outside world,
especially at a time when the world is
growing smaller each day.”2
Accordingly,
Peng concludes that China’s development depends on a favourable
international strategic situation. China’s leadership continues to
ground its political discourse in the precepts of Marx, Lenin and Mao.
Mao Zedong initially called on his people to develop nuclear weapons,
“We also need the atom bomb,” Mao stated in 1956. “If our nation
does not want to be intimidated, we have to have this thing.”3
Mao’s view of war remained both complex and different in many
significant aspects from the traditional Western military view. Mao did not
hesitate to describe war as “the highest form of struggle between nations,
states, classes, or political groups.”4
Moreover, neither was he reluctant to
assert that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”5
Mao often
cited Lenin’s rendering of Clausewitz to the effect that “war is simply the
continuation of politics by other means.”6
Mao also questioned the theory
that “weapons mean everything,” which he described as “a mechanist
[sic] theory of war.”7
Having long regarded a country’s independent
capacity to display, deploy and commit its armies as a vital component of
its sovereign independence, Mao dreamed that China would acquire the
unshackled ability to mobilise and use effective military power, for only
With the
development
of modern
nuclear bombs
and missiles,
Mao recast the
struggle into
one with a
military-technical
emphasis
that relied on
assured nuclear
retaliation
to ensure
deterrence.
Monika Chansoria
CLAWS Journal l Winter 2013 81
that power would distinguish the new state
from its humiliated predecessors.8
On the debris of a dead imperialism,
the victorious people would create with
extreme rapidity a civilization thousands of
times higher than the capitalist system and
a truly beautiful future for themselves.9
Mao Zedong, at the initial outset dismissed the dangers of nuclear
war and reaffirmed the principles of people’s war. However, for several
months in 1955, the possibility of a preemptive nuclear strike against
China, perhaps in the near future, received high-level attention in
the political corridors of Beijing. The revolutionary elite under Mao
Zedong came to power in 1949 with beliefs that may well have led
to the nuclear weapons decision even without the unbroken chain of
crisis. The leadership’s nationalistic ideology and concepts of force and
diplomacy shaped its perceptions of the enduring dangers to China and
the restoration of China’s international position. Memories of the civil
war and fear of aggression by hostile outside powers imbued the top
command with a strong military bias and an assurance that its appraisal of
China’s situation was wholly realistic.10
Chinese Nuclear and Military Thinking
For Mao in the late 1940s, the strategic calculus was clear. The struggle
against imperialism could be intensified and need not be intimidated
by the American nuclear threat. He reasoned that the Soviet Union
and the US would continue to compete for the lands that lay between
them and would not directly fight one another. Mao said that the
“vast zone” between the US and the Soviet Union had become the
battleground, and China as one of the targets in that zone could take
Mao did not
hesitate to
describe war
as “the highest
form of struggle
between nations,
states, classes, or
political groups.”
The Political History of China’s Nuclear Bomb
82 	 CLAWS Journal l Winter 2013
actions to achieve victory in the struggle
between the forces of peace and war.11
Mao
had said in 1955 that the atomic bomb
was not “an invincible magic weapon.”12
It had not altered the calculus of strategic
conflict. Thus, he could reaffirm a policy
line carried over from the revolution that
one should despise the enemy strategically
but take it seriously tactically.13
As Beijing
leaned closer to Moscow during the Korean
conflict, Washington increasingly focussed
on ways to exploit China’s weaknesses. At the end of the Korean
War in 1953, senior security specialists both in China’s People’s
Liberation Army (PLA) and the Eisenhower Administration, shared
a deep frustration about the war’s lessons. The Chinese knew firsthand
the devastating might of modern arms and the high cost and
probable military irrelevance of earlier revolutionary doctrines. The
war introduced Mao’s China to advanced armaments and techniques
and, as we shall see, to the threat of nuclear attack. To survive in the
modern world, China would have to have modern arms.14
Mao called for preparedness against a sudden turn of events (and)
advocated envisaging the worst possibilities while defining a new world war
as the worst.15
The emphasis on the possible outbreak of a global conflict
marked a visible departure from long-standing Maoist considerations of
strategic policies. It was long known that in 1955, the Chinese military was
preoccupied for a long time with questions of nuclear strategy.16
Chinese
leaders have long held the view that that they reached the decision to
launch their nuclear weapons programme under duress. The Chinese
Politburo had tentatively initiated the nation’s first five-year plan in 1953,
but then the Party leaders delayed formal approval for two years because
of “objective difficulties.” Many Chinese specialists have argued that, in
The
revolutionary
elite under Mao
Zedong came to
power in 1949
with beliefs that
may well have
led to the nuclear
weapons decision
even without the
unbroken chain
of crisis.
Monika Chansoria
CLAWS Journal l Winter 2013 83
addition to the country’s internal problems,
the government had to postpone the effort to
modernise China since, during the years of the
Korean War (1953-55) and the Taiwan Strait
crisis (1954-55), the United States (US) was
actively seeking to unseat Communist rule in
Beijing and restore Chiang Kai-shek back to
power on the mainland.17
Mao understood the importance of
nuclear weapons and the power they bestowed. Particularly revealing
of his great concern with what he called “US atomic blackmail”
were his remarks at the end of January 1955 to the Finnish envoy to
China. In an interview, in which the Chairman assailed the US for
“contemplating an atomic war,” he began by merely echoing his 1946
pronouncement that atomic weapons are “paper tigers,” observing,
“The US cannot annihilate the Chinese nation with its small stack
of atom bombs.”18
But then, in a somewhat atypical excursion into
hyperbole about nuclear weapons, he added: “Even if the US atom
bombs were so powerful that, when dropped on China, they would
make a hole right through the earth, or even blow it up, that would
hardly mean anything to the universe as a whole, though it might be a
major event for the solar system.”19
In October 1951, Frederic Joliot-Curie in Paris urged the Chinese
radiochemist Yang Chengzong to seek out Mao upon Yang’s return
to China. “Please tell Chairman Mao Zedong, ‘You should own the
atomic bomb. The atomic bomb is not so terrifying’.” He noted that
the “fundamental principles of the bomb had not been discovered by
the Americans.” Irene Joliot-Curie then gave Yang ten grams of radium
salt standardised for radioactive emissions, because she wanted “to
support the Chinese people in their nuclear research.” By 1955, this
French advice and assistance had helped raise the level of consciousness in
Chinese leaders
have long
held the view
that that they
reached the
decision to
launch their
nuclear weapons
programme
under duress.
The Political History of China’s Nuclear Bomb
84 	 CLAWS Journal l Winter 2013
Beijing about the bomb and its potential
significance for China. Mao characterised
that significance for his senior colleagues
in 1958, when he told them that without
atomic and hydrogen bombs, “others
don’t think what we say carries weight.”20
The Chinese public position on
nuclear weapons became more lucid
when Jen-min Jih-pao conceded that the
“Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has
consistently held that nuclear weapons
have unprecedented destructive power
and that it would be an unprecedented
calamity for mankind if nuclear war
should break out.” The Chinese,
however, continued to insist that nuclear
war “would result in the extinction of imperialism and definitely not
in the extinction of mankind” and that under “no circumstances must
Communists act as voluntary propagandists for the US imperialist
policy of nuclear blackmail.”21
In October 1960, Gen Fu Chung,
Deputy Director of the PLA’s Political Work Department, wrote,
“The issue of a future war will not be decided by guided missiles or
atom bombs… It will still be decided by man.”22
Whatever the actual
motivation underlying charges and countercharges of this nature,
there is confirmation to believe that based upon China’s military
doctrine on nuclear war, its assessment of the threat, and views on
deterrence, the hypothesis that the Chinese did understand the
significance of nuclear warfare, does find support. For an instance, in
October 1957, the Chinese Air Force doctrine defined the military
threat as that of destruction of military areas, industrial complexes, and
communication centres by surprise attacks from the air. It emphasised
The Chinese,
however,
continued to insist
that nuclear war
“would result in
the extinction of
imperialism and
definitely not in
the extinction of
mankind” and
that under “no
circumstances
must Communists
act as voluntary
propagandists for
the US imperialist
policy of nuclear
blackmail.”
Monika Chansoria
CLAWS Journal l Winter 2013 85
the immediate need for a combat-ready air
defence system, and pointed to the need
to destroy the enemy in the air before vital
centres could be destroyed.23
China’s review of its inherent
vulnerability to nuclear warfare in the 1954-
55 time period can be attributed in part to
a growing awareness of the enhancement of
the US’ striking power in the Far East during
that time. US Secretary of State Dulles in
March 1955, described US sea and air forces
in the area as “now equipped with new and
powerful weapons of precision” and counted
“atomic missiles” among conventional weapons. Chinese newspapers ran
numerous comments on the reported assignment of missiles to Taiwan in
1957, the increase in US military (including nuclear) capabilities during
the 1958 Quemoy crisis, stationing of anti-aircraft missiles in Taiwan and
Japan, the proposed build-up of Polaris submarines in the US Pacific Fleet,
the reported presence of B-52s in the Far Eastern theatre, the rotation
of jet fighter planes, US manoeuvres, as well as efforts to strengthen
US capabilities for low-level military operations in the area.24
Evidence
strongly suggests that the US military posture in the Western Pacific
imposed important restraints on Chinese military actions that could well
result in a direct confrontation with the United States: the 1962 Fukien
build-up when New China News Agency (hereafter referred to as NCNA),
pointed out that “it is only because they [the Chiang Kai-shek bandit
troops] are shielded by US imperialism, that they are able to hold on
to Taiwan and the other coastal islands.”25
At the same time, Beijing’s
unwillingness to risk an independent confrontation with US forces in the
area indicated that China had been deterred from taking military actions
directly involving US interests in the area.26
China’s review
of its inherent
vulnerability to
nuclear warfare
in the 1954-55
time period can
be attributed in
part to a growing
awareness of the
enhancement
of US’ striking
power in the Far
East during that
time.
The Political History of China’s Nuclear Bomb
86 	 CLAWS Journal l Winter 2013
When the crisis in the United States began deepening, the Chinese
Politburo expressed ever greater concern about the possible American
use of nuclear weapons against China. In January 1955, Renmin Ribao
accused the US of treating atomic weapons as conventional arms, and
the following week, Zhou Enlai claimed that the US was “brandishing
atomic weapons” in an attempt to maintain its position on Taiwan.27
No sooner was the Formosa Resolution passed, that the Chinese press
alleged that it included the threat to use atomic weapons against the
Chinese people.28
By this time, the Chinese Politburo had launched
the nation’s nuclear weapons programme. As the decision-making
process began in January, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai invited nuclear
scientist Qian Sanqiang to a meeting in his office with Bo Yibo, a
minister in charge of economic affairs, and Li Siguang and Liu Jie from
the Ministry of Geology.29
In the discussions that followed, Qian, as
head of the Institute of Physics (and later Director of the Institute of
Atomic Energy), lectured Zhou on the atomic bomb and the status
of China’s nuclear research and evaluated the country’s manpower
and facilities in the nuclear field. Zhou questioned Liu Jie about
the geology of uranium and, with Qian, reviewed the fundamentals
of atomic reactors and nuclear weapons. At the conclusion of this
unusual seminar, Zhou instructed those present to prepare for a fulldress
meeting with Chairman Mao.30
As a follow-up, Mao presided over an enlarged meeting of the
Central Secretariat called in order to discuss the reasons for, and the
possibilities of, starting a nuclear weapons programme.31
At the Central
Secretariat meeting, attended by all the senior members of the Politburo,
Qian Sanqiang was joined by Minister of Geology Li Siguang, an eminent
scientist, and Liu Jie. Understandably, Mao turned the meeting over to
the scientists, and the conference room in Zhongnanhai, the political and
state centre in the Forbidden City, became a classroom in introductory
nuclear physics and uranium geology.32
After hearing the scientists out,
Monika Chansoria
CLAWS Journal l Winter 2013 87
Mao began by highlighting the promising
evidence concerning China’s uranium
potential and the building of its scientific
base and stated, “During the past years
we have been busy doing other things,
and there was not enough time for us to
pay attention to this matter (of nuclear
weapons). Sooner or later, we would have
to pay attention to it. Now, it is time for
us to pay attention to it. We can achieve
success provided we put it on the order of
the day. Now, (because) the Soviet Union
is giving us assistance, we must achieve
success! We can also achieve success even if we do this ourselves.” The
Chairman announced that China would immediately devote major efforts
to developing atomic energy research for military purposes.33
When Mao Zedong stated that a nuclear weapon was an accessory to
hegemonism and China would never become hegemonistic of the likes
of the US and USSR, he, in fact, started the Chinese nuclear project
simultaneously. This logic has also been reflected in Mao’s speeches
during the Cultural Revolution. Later, Hu Jintao argued that while China
places more importance on the development of its military capability,
it must simultaneously emphasise more on the peaceful essence of its
foreign policy since “the emphasis can mediate the symbolic and realistic
aspects of its policy, symmetrize these two sides, and create legitimacy
of this policy.”34
The document accepts that despite this mediating and
symmetrical logic, observers usually would suspect and try to figure out
China’s real nuclear policy because of the rapid expansion of its nuclear
arsenal. The document further states that China’s policy of not initiating
a nuclear war does not mean that Beijing would not continue to expand
its nuclear arsenal, since it only goes to improving its nuclear capability.35
When Mao Zedong
accused that a
nuclear weapon
was an accessory
to hegemonism
and China would
never become
hegemonistic of
the likes of the
US and USSR,
he, in fact, started
the Chinese
nuclear project
simultaneously.
The Political History of China’s Nuclear Bomb
88 	 CLAWS Journal l Winter 2013
Factors and Explanations Swaying
China’s Nuclear Weapons
Development
By January 1955, the Chinese leadership
decided to obtain their own nuclear arsenal
primarily in the backdrop of three major events
beginning with the ending of the Korean
War in 1953, hostilities at the time of, and
shortly after, the 1954 Geneva Conference
on Korea and Indochina, and the crisis in
the Taiwan Strait in late 1954 and early
1955.36
Moreover, the rate of development
of China’s nuclear weapons programme was
influenced by deterioration in China’s economic situation since 1959 and
the withdrawal of Soviet technicians in mid-1960, presumably including
those attached to China’s nuclear programme. It is difficult, however, to
determine the impact of either of these developments.37
Among the options open to China were using nuclear weapons as an
umbrella for overt non-nuclear military operations and for purposes of
political propaganda exploitation of a nuclear capability. Besides, threats
to national security may well have caused the urgent need for nuclear
weapons, and immutable scientific realities and technological capabilities
could have set the initial outer limits of the programme’s speed, scope
and autonomy. However, the decision that China’s security required the
acquisition of nuclear weapons stemmed from values and perspectives
shared by Beijing’s revolutionary commanders. While most of the leaders
of the strategic weapons programme probably accepted those inherited
values and perspectives in the beginning, the programme’s seven essential
tasks gradually superimposed new perspectives and, ultimately, new
values on the old.38
Analysis of Communist China’s foreign and military
policies shows that a major objective was the achievement of great power
Among the
options open to
China were using
nuclear weapons
as an umbrella
for overt nonnuclear
military
operations and
for purposes
of political
propaganda
exploitation
of a nuclear
capability.
Monika Chansoria
CLAWS Journal l Winter 2013 89
status and recognition of Beijing. China’s
attempt was to establish hegemony in Asia,
by incorporating Taiwan into its domain
and further extending Chinese influence
into South and Southeast Asia as well as
towards Japan and Korea. However, the
degree to which the Chinese could hope
to achieve this objective remained largely
dependent on the extent to which US
power and influence could be kept away
including the US base-alliance system
in the Far East, US security and military
assistance arrangements, as well as American access to the area.39
While assuming that no major change in the politico-military
environment in the Far East occurred in the period prior to Beijing’s
initial detonation of a nuclear device, the problem for the Chinese,
despite an improving military posture, continued to be that of finding
appropriate means to pursue their political objectives in the Far East
while remaining militarily inferior to the United States. The Chinese
Communists debated upon exploiting a nuclear detonation at the
political propaganda level, designed to achieve varying objectives and
tailored to a number of audiences with different attitudes.40
China
appeared willing to detonate an unsophisticated nuclear device at the
earliest possible date until secret underground testing enabled it to
develop an operational nuclear-weapons capability. Undoubtedly, a
key element in Beijing’s propaganda calculations was that China would
be the first Asian nation to enter the “nuclear club.” It was assumed
that a nuclear detonation would be described as a great scientific
achievement, reflecting the extent of China’s economic and scientific
progress since 1949, as a visible result of China’s “great leap forward”.
This, in turn, would confirm the superiority of the Chinese road to
China appeared
willing to detonate
an unsophisticated
nuclear device
at the earliest
possible date
until secret
underground
testing enabled
it to develop
an operational
nuclear-weapons
capability.
The Political History of China’s Nuclear Bomb
90 	 CLAWS Journal l Winter 2013
industrialisation and of China as a model for Asia.41
China’s nuclear
detonation was expected to forward its claim to recognition as a voice
in international organisations, particularly the United Nations, and
also as a means of obtaining a political price for Beijing’s participation
in disarmament negotiations.42
In order to bring to bear the pressure
of its ‘nuclear threat’ in order to affect a ‘peaceful’ but favourable
solution to the Taiwan issue, the design would be to use China’s
emerging military potential to foster differences between the Chinese
Nationalists and the United States, between the Chinese Nationalists
and the Taiwanese, and within the Chinese Nationalist elite itself.43
In June 1960, Gen Li Cheh-min argued that “modern revisionists,
frightened out of their wits by the imperialist blackmail of nuclear war,
exaggerated the consequences of the destructiveness of nuclear war and
begged imperialism for peace at any cost, in fact, playing the role of
helping the imperialists undermine the militant spirit of the people.”44
In fact, the degree to which the Chinese could hope to assert leadership
in the Far East largely depended on the extent to which they could
manage to curtail US access to the area. Thus, another pay-off envisaged
by the Chinese from their detonation of a nuclear device would be the
reinforcement of trends in Asia toward neutralism and accommodation
with Beijing, providing unfavourable Asian and American responses. To
strengthen neutralist trends and to cause US allies to limit American use
of bases and facilities in the area, it was expected that the Chinese would
exaggerate their nuclear threat, to deprecate the US military position in
the area, to exploit the Asian fear of nuclear war, and to focus particular
attention on Taiwan and the off-shore islands as a probable source of
war.45
Moreover, hoping that the Asian fears of involvement in
a nuclear war would likely foster a trend toward neutralism and
accommodation with the mainland, Beijing could be expected
simultaneously to take measures designed to minimise unfavourable
Monika Chansoria
CLAWS Journal l Winter 2013 91
Asian and American reactions to China’s nuclear detonation. China
would probably seek to justify its testing by attempting to shift
the onus for its detonation of a nuclear device to the other side.46
Moreover, China blamed the United States for consistently ignoring
its proposal for the establishment of a zone of peace in the Far East
and Pacific, including a zone free of nuclear weapons; that the United
States was responsible for the failure to reach any agreement on the
suspension of nuclear weapons testing or on the banning of nuclear
weapons. According to the Jen-min Jih-pao, December 22, 1961,
“We hold that if the United States is not willing to reach agreement
on the banning of nuclear weapons, then all peace-loving countries
are naturally entitled to conduct nuclear tests, manufacture nuclear
weapons in order to safeguard their own security and put a further
check on US imperialism’s threat to unleash a nuclear war. There
will be undoubted insistence that China has every right to test and
produce nuclear weapons unless (1) international agreement is
reached on general disarmament, or (2) an agreement is reached
creating a zone in the Far East and Pacific free from weapons of
mass destruction. While in no way prepared to accept an Asian
nuclear-free zone, unless perhaps all its other objectives in the area
were realised, China may well continue to advance the concept on
an undefined and ambiguous basis. Or, in line with what Chou Enlai
told Edgar Snow in the fall of 1960, it might demand American
recognition and removal of American forces from the Taiwan area
as prerequisites for negotiations leading to such a zone.”47
China
would hope to use its nuclear threat to enhance the role of its
conventional forces by opting for what they hoped would be quick
gains through local conventional operations behind the shield of
their incipient deterrent capability.48
In a 1966 analysis, the utility
of nuclear weapons for conventional war was questioned, although
not totally dismissed:
The Political History of China’s Nuclear Bomb
92 	 CLAWS Journal l Winter 2013
The nuclear weapon is after all only a type of
weapon; it cannot replace the conventional
weapon, much less a decisive battle by ground
forces. The ultimate victory in war is not
decided by firing rockets that carry nuclear
warheads… it is in the final analysis decided by
fighting at close quarters... on the battlefield,
by soldiers using conventional weapons to
fight a series of ground battles to wipe out…
the enemy… The more nuclear weapons are
used and the stronger fire power is, the more it is necessary to rely upon
fighting at close quarters and fighting at night to solve problems, the
more it is necessary to bring the human factor into play.
Moreover, China was also expected to reason that possession of a
nuclear capability would deter resistance to Chinese moves and lead to
pressures against US intervention or the imposition of restrictions on the
American use of bases and facilities in the area, thus, keeping the risks of
such actions within acceptable limits. Post possessing a nuclear capability,
China may: (1) be more prone to provide overt or covert support to
regional adversaries; (2) consider the time appropriate to test US and free
Asian responses in such areas as Taiwan and the off-shore islands with a
view to exploiting the situation both militarily and politically; and (3) be
even more willing to make overt use of its military power to compel the
settlement of border problems on its terms.49
The advantages accruing to the Chinese as a result of their developing
a modest nuclear capability provided that caution and rationality
continued to characterise Chinese military behaviour and that the United
States retained the determination and capability to make the risks of overt
Chinese military operations in the area extremely high,. The Chinese
were likely to find that the advantages of possessing a modest nuclear
Chinese political
or low-level
military successes
in the context
of increasing
strength and
capabilities
could make
future military
responses all the
more difficult.
Monika Chansoria
CLAWS Journal l Winter 2013 93
capability lay in its political propaganda usage and
would serve as a back-up for low-level military
operations.50
The challenge that Communist
China would pose to the United States and other
Asian countries as it progressively moved toward
the acquisition of nuclear capability remained a
challenge that would not necessarily be a clearcut
military one, and may increase China’s ability
to make gains with little risk. Chinese political
or low-level military successes in the context of increasing strength and
capabilities could make future military responses all the more difficult.
In sum, there would be little reason to underestimate the possibilities
open to the Chinese in the political, low-risk use of their inferior military
forces, nuclear and otherwise.51
Some of this dedication can be explained in the backdrop of a rising
tide of Chinese nationalism. A new pride was being experienced by Chinese
nationalists while their country fought the most powerful nation in the
world. For them, the Korean War had spawned an angry determination
to make a difference to the strengthening of the New China.52
The lure
of science and engineering as much as nationalism shaped the mindset
of those who met the nuclear challenge. As Mao had written in 1937
that conceptual knowledge depends on social practice, and social practice
could take many forms: production, class struggle, political activity, and
scientific and artistic pursuits. Such practice, as guided by the Party,
determines valid knowledge and differentiates between right and wrong.
Party-managed practices, Mao predicted, would imbue the Party’s cadres
and members with the confidence of having true knowledge and of being
right.53
With Mao Zedong’s death in 1976 and Deng Xiaoping
consolidating power and leading China in a new, more pragmatic
direction, more so in the backdrop of the Chinese leadership
The lure of
science and
engineering
as much as
nationalism
shaped the
mindset of
those who met
the nuclear
challenge.
The Political History of China’s Nuclear Bomb
94 	 CLAWS Journal l Winter 2013
seeing enormous amount of political guanxi being expended,
Beijing wanted to realise its long-term aspirations to augment
its position and role in global politics and that nuclear weapons
play a fundamental role in its plans, given China’s foreign policy
aspirations; its ability to achieve those aspirations; and its nuclear
arsenal as a critical assurance of military supremacy.
Notes
1.	 Zhang Xuebin, “Two ‘isms’ on the Same Vine,” reprinted in BBC Summary of World
Broadcasts, February 8, 2000.
2.	 Peng Guangqian, “Deng Xiaoping’s Strategic Thought,” in Michael Pillsbury, ed., Chinese
Views of Future Warfare (Washington: National Defense University Press, 1998), p. 9.
3.	 Cited in Yang Huan, “China’s Strategic Nuclear Weapons,” in Pillsbury, ed., Ibid., p.
132.
4.	 Mao Tse-tung, “Problems of China’s Revolutionary War,” Selected Works Vol II (New
York: International Publishers, 1954), p. 187.
5.	 Mao Tse-tung, “Problems of War and Strategy,” in Ibid., p. 272.
6.	 Mao Tse-tung, “On the Protracted War,” in Ibid., p. 202.
7.	 Ibid.
8.	 John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litae, China Builds the Bomb (CA: Stanford University Press,
1988), p. 35.
9.	 “Long Live Leninism!” Hung Ch’i editorial, April 19, 1960.
10.	 John W Lewis, “China’s Military Doctrines and Force Posture,” in Thomas Fingar, ed.,
China’s Quest for Independence: Policy Evolution in the 1970s (Boulder: CO Press, 1980),
pp. 148-50.
11.	 Lewis and Xue, n. 8, p. 5.
12.	 “Speeches at the National Conference of the Communist Party of China,” in Mao Tsetung,
Selected Works, Vol. 5, n. 4, p. 168.
13.	 Li Tso-peng, “Strategically Pitting One Against Ten,” Peking Review, No. 15, April 9,
1965.
14.	 Lewis and Xue, n. 8, pp. 9-10.
15.	 “Speeches at the National Conference of the Communist Party of China,” in Mao Tsetung,
Selected Works, Vol. 5, n. 4, p. 168.
16.	 Alice Langley Hsieh, Communist China’s Strategy in the Nuclear Era, (NJ: Englewood
Cliffs, 1962), p. 26; also see, Herbert S Dinerstein, ed., War and the Soviet Union: Nuclear
Weapons and the Revolution in Soviet Military and Political Thinking (Westport Press, 1962).
17.	 Lewis and Xue, n. 8, p. 11.
18.	 “The Chinese People Cannot be Cowed by an Atom Bomb,” in Mao Tse-tung, Selected
Works, Vol. 5, n. 4, pp. 152, 153.
Monika Chansoria
CLAWS Journal l Winter 2013 95
19.	 Ibid.
20.	 Li Jue, Lei Rongtian, Li Yi, and Li Yingxiang, eds., Contemporary China’s Nuclear Industry,
(Beijing Press, 1987), pp. 4-9.
21.	 Jen-min Jih-pao editorial, “The Differences between Comrade Togliatti and Us,” December
31, 1962; also see, “On the Debris of a Dead Imperialism,” The New York Times, July 16,
1963.
22.	 Fu Chung, “Great Victories for Mao Tse-tung’s Military Dialectics,” Jen-min Jih-pao
editorial, October 6-7, 1960.
23.	 Fang-k’ung Chun, (Air Defense Troops), in Chu Hsin, Yuan Liang, and Chou Len-shen,
eds., Peking, October 1957.
24.	 Alice Langley Hsieh, Communist China and Nuclear Force (Santa Monica, California:
RAND Corporation, March 1963), pp. 16-17
25.	 New China News Agency Report, Peking, June 23, 1962.
26.	 Hsieh, n. 24, p. 19.
27.	 Tan Wenrui, cited in Xinhua in Survey of China Mainland Press, No. 974, January 24, 1955,
p. 2.
28.	 “Resolutely Oppose the United States’ Provocation of War,” Renmin Ribao, January 29,
1955.
29.	 Li Jue, et al., n. 20, p. 13.
30.	 Lewis and Xue, n. 8, pp. 37-38.
31.	 Li Jue, et al., n. 20; Zhang Jiong, “March toward a Bright China,” Springtime of Science,
Beijing, 1979, p. 108.
32.	 Lewis and Xue, n. 8, p. 38.
33.	 For more details see, “Speeches at the National Conference of the Communist Party of
China,” in Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 5, n. 4.
34.	 The author accessed a declassified document titled “China’s Nuclear Policy”, No. 19,
May 2009 while visiting the library at the East China Normal University, Shanghai,
September 2012.
35.	 Ibid.
36.	 Lewis and Xue, n. 8, p. 11.
37.	 Hsieh, n. 24, p. 4.
38.	 Lewis and Xue, n. 8, p. 4.
39.	 Hsieh, n. 24, pp. 6-7.
40.	 Ibid., p. 21.
41.	 Ibid., p. 22.
42.	 For Communist China’s attitude toward disarmament negotiations, see Alice Langley
Hsieh, The Chinese Genie: Peking’s Role in the Nuclear Test Ban Negotiations (RAND
Corporation, P-2022, June 20, 1960); also see, Ciro E Zoppo and Alice Langley Hsieh,
The Accession of Other Nations to the Nuclear Test Ban (RAND Corporation, RM-2730ARPA,
March 8, 1961).
43.	 Hsieh, n. 24, p. 23.
44.	 Li Cheh-min, “Resolute Struggles Must Be Carried out Against US Imperialism,” JenThe
Political History of China’s Nuclear Bomb
96 	 CLAWS Journal l Winter 2013
min Jih-pao, June 25, 1960.
45.	 Hsieh, n. 24, p. 24.
46.	 Ibid.
47.	 Edgar Snow, “Red China’s Leaders Talk Peace — On Their Terms,” Look, January 31,
1961.
48.	 Hsieh, n. 24, p. 28.
49.	 Ibid., p. 42.
50.	 Ibid., p. 43.
51.	 Ibid.
52.	 Lewis and Xue, n. 8, p. 4.
53.	 For more details see, Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 4, n. 5.
Monika Chansoria