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16 October 1964
China exploded an atomic bomb at 15:00 hours on October 16, 1964, thereby successfully carrying out its first nuclear test. This is a major achievement of the Chinese people in their struggle to strengthen their national defence and oppose the U.S. imperialist policy of nuclear blackmail and nuclear threats.
To defend oneself is the inalienable right of every sovereign state. To safeguard world peace is the common task of all peace-loving countries. China cannot remain idle in the face of the ever-increasing nuclear threats from the United States. China is conducting nuclear tests and developing nuclear weapons under compulsion.
The Chinese Government has consistently advocated the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons. If this had been achieved, China need not have developed nuclear weapons. But our proposal has met with stubborn resistance from the U.S. imperialists. The Chinese Government pointed out long ago that the treaty on the partial halting of nuclear tests signed in Moscow in July 1963 by the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union was a big fraud to fool the people of the world, that it was an attempt to consolidate the nuclear monopoly of the three nuclear powers and tie the hands of all peace-loving countries, and that it had increased, and not decreased, the nuclear threat of U.S. imperialism against the people of China and of the whole world. Even at that time, the U.S. Government openly declared that the conclusion of this treaty did not in the least mean that the United States would not conduct underground tests or that it would not use, manufacture, stockpile, export or spread nuclear weapons. Facts over the past year and more have fully proved this point.
During this period, the United States had not stopped manufacturing various nuclear weapons on the basis of nuclear tests it has already conducted. Seeking ever-greater perfection, the United States has, moreover, during this same period conducted several dozen underground nuclear tests to improve further the nuclear weapons it manufactures. In stationing nuclear submarines in Japan, the United States is posing a direct threat to the Japanese people, the Chinese people, and the peoples of all other Asian countries. Through the so-called multilateral nuclear force, the United States is now trying to put nuclear weapons into the hands of the West German revanchists, thereby threatening the security of the German Democratic Republic and the other socialist countries in Eastern Europe. U.S. submarines carrying Polaris missiles with nuclear warheads are prowling the Taiwan Straits, the Bac Bo Gulf (Tonkin Gulf), the Mediterranean Sea, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean, everywhere threatening peace-loving countries and all the peoples who are fighting against imperialism, colonialism, and neo-colonialism. Under these circumstances, how can it be considered that U.S. nuclear blackmail and nuclear threats against the people of the world have ceased to exist just because of the false impression created by the temporary halting of atmospheric tests by the United States?
The atomic bomb is a paper tiger. This famous statement by Chairman Mao Tse-tung is known to all. This was our view in the past and this is still our view at present. China is developing nuclear weapons not because it believes in their omnipotence nor because it plans to use them. On the contrary, in developing nuclear weapons, China's aim is to break the nuclear monopoly of the nuclear powers and to eliminate nuclear weapons.
The Chinese Government is loyal to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. We believe in the people. It is the people, and not any weapons, that decide the outcome of a war. The destiny of China is decided by the Chinese people, while the destiny of the world is decided by the people of the world, and not by nuclear weapons. China is developing nuclear weapons for defence and for protecting the Chinese people from U.S. threats to launch a nuclear war.
The Chinese Government hereby solemnly declares that China will never at any time or under any circumstances be the first to use nuclear weapons.
The Chinese people resolutely support all the oppressed nations and peoples in their struggles for liberation. We firmly believe that, by relying on their own struggles and by helping one another, the people of the world are bound to triumph. China's success in making nuclear weapons is a great encouragement to the revolutionary people of the world in their struggles and a great contribution to the cause of defending world peace. On the question of nuclear weapons, China will not commit the error of adventurism or the error of capitulationism. The Chinese people can be trusted.
The Chinese Government fully understands the good intentions of peace-loving countries and peoples in demanding an end to all nuclear tests. But more and more countries are coming to realize that the more exclusive the monopoly of nuclear weapons held by the U.S. imperialists and their partners, the greater the danger of a nuclear war. They are very arrogant when they have those weapons while you haven't. But when those who oppose them also have such weapons, they will not be so haughty, their policy of nuclear blackmail and nuclear threats will not be so effective, and the possibility of complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons will increase. We sincerely hope that a nuclear war will never break out. We are deeply convinced that, so long as all peace-loving countries and peoples make joint efforts and persist in the struggle, nuclear war can be prevented.
The Chinese Government hereby solemnly proposes to the governments of the world that a summit conference of all the countries of the world be convened to discuss the question of the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons, and that as the first step, the summit conference conclude an agreement to the effect that the nuclear powers and those countries which may soon become nuclear powers undertake not to use nuclear weapons either against non-nuclear countries and nuclear-free zones or against each other.
If those countries in possession of large numbers of nuclear weapons are not even willing to undertake not to use them, how can they expect countries not yet in possession of such weapons to believe in their sincerity for peace and to refrain from taking defensive measures that are necessary and within their capabilities?
The Chinese Government will, as always, exert every effort to promote, through international consultations, the realization of the lofty aim of complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons. Until that day comes, the Chinese Government and people will firmly and unswervingly follow their own path to strengthen their national defence, defend their motherland, and safeguard world peace.
We are convinced that man, who creates nuclear weapons, will certainly be able to eliminate them.
This
material is produced independently for NTI by the James Martin
Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of
International Studies and does not necessarily reflect the
opinions of and has not been independently verified by NTI or
its directors, officers, employees, agents. Copyright © 2007 by
MIIS.
