How China used a ‘paper tiger’ to emerge as a nuclear weapon superpower
On the 60th anniversary of the nation’s first atomic weapon test, experts trace how policy, politics and purpose laid a foundation for China’s nuclear might
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 test, on October 16, 1964, and the fission chain reaction it triggered, melted the top half of a 120-metre (394 feet) high iron tower. It was a pivotal moment in China’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
The experiment was conducted at a time of immense political challenges: the nation’s alliance with the Soviet Union had fallen apart and Moscow had withdrawn its technological help in the late 1950s, China was mired in a deep economic crisis.
But the detonation put China on a fast track to grow its nuclear strength before an important deadline that had been drafted by the United States, the former Soviet Union and Britain for the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT).
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.
At the same time, while China was developing its nuclear weapons programme, it was also developing its missile technologies. On October 27, 1966, China launched a Dong Feng-2 (DF-2) medium-range ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead mounted on it. The test gave China the capability of delivering a nuclear bomb by missile instead of by aircraft.
On June 17 the following year at Lop Nur, China tested its first thermonuclear device – a hydrogen bomb – a more advanced type of nuclear weapon.
