Negin arrived in Beijing to explain to Chinese scientists “how a nuclear weapon is made” (Reed and Stillman 99). In June 1958, a Soviet delegation led by E. The Soviet Union promised to supply China with the R-2 short-range ballistic missile and even a prototype atomic bomb. In return, the Chinese agreed to sell their surplus uranium to the Soviet Union.Īfter the successful launch of Sputnik 1 in October 1957, Mao and Khrushchev signed an additional agreement: the New Defense Technical Accord. The Soviets allowed Chinese scientists to come study in the Soviet Union and agreed to provide China with nuclear reactors and a cyclotron. General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev visited Beijing in 1954, and in 1955 the two countries signed an agreement for “full assistance in the fields of nuclear physics and the peaceful uses of atomic energy” (Reed and Stillman 94). The Joliot-Curies were also directly supportive of the Chinese nuclear program in 1951, Irène gave Chinese radiochemist Yang Chengzong ten grams of radium “to support the Chinese people in their nuclear research” (Chansoria 83).Ĭhina also received substantial support for its nuclear program from the Soviet Union. Qian returned to Beijing in 1948 and founded the China Institute of Atomic Energy. One such physicist was Qian Sanqiang-sometimes called “the father of the Chinese atomic bomb”-who studied at the Collège de France under French physicists Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie for over a decade. Qian Sanqiang with Frederic and Irene Joliot-Curie, 1948Īdditionally, Mao pushed for the return of the many Chinese scientists who studied in Europe and the United States. have never raised the ante-we have always just called the bet. In those ‘poker games,’ such as Korea and Indo-China, we. One proponent of nuclear action, General Curtis LeMay, argued in 1954, “I would drop a few bombs in proper places like China, Manchuria and Southeastern Russia. Truman subsequently ordered ten nuclear-armed B-29s to the Pacific fleet as his government seriously considered a nuclear strike. After North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950, Washington intervened in support of the South, while Beijing fought in support of the North. Mao quickly faced intense hostility from the West, particularly the United States, which threatened nuclear strikes against China. Although China’s alliance with the Soviet Union would be short-lived, it played a crucial role in the success of the Chinese nuclear program during its early years. Mao soon visited Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin in Moscow, where the two signed the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance. Although the Chinese atomic bomb project was mostly independent, it greatly benefited from Soviet support and from Western sources.Īfter years of civil war, communist leader Mao Zedong established the People’s Republic of China in 1949. In 1964, China became the fifth country to possess nuclear weapons following the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France.
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