‘China’s Economy Not Ready For Atom Bombs'

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30216, 22 August 1963, Page 13

‘China ’s Economy Not Ready For Atom Bombs'

(N Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) MOSCOW, August 21. Russia in a long statement last night said China was not yet “ready to produce nuclear arms in any quantity.” The statement, renewing Russia’s attack on China for her opposition to the East-West Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, was published by Tass in the name of the Soviet Government.

It said: “If China were to produce two or three bombs, this would not mean a solution of the question for her . . . but would bring about a great exhaustion of the Chinese economy.” The Chinese position “cam be understood omly in the sense that the Chinese leaders do not care how nuclear arms spread among the capitalist States as long as the Chinese leaders get a chance lb lay their hands on a nuclear bomb and see what it’s like,” the statement said.

The statement referred to Chinese claims that the treaty did not prohibit the United States from holding underground nuclear tests nor from increasing its stockpiles of nuclear arms. It said: “The hands of the United States were not bound in this respect before the signing of the treaty ... so nothing new has occurred in this respect. “The treaty also does not prohibit the Soviet Union, if need be, holding underground nuclear tests, increasing stockpiles of its nuclear weapons and .even using these arms against the imperialist aggressors if they unleash a war in a fit of insanity,” the statement said.

The Soviet Government was replying to a statement by a Chinese Government spokesman on August 15. China then accused Mr Khrushchev of refusing to give China a sample atomic bomb and nuclear information in June, 1959. The Chinese statement also accused the Soviet Union of having plotted with American imperialism against China since 1959. The statement said the Chinese leaders were abusing the Soviet Union in every possible way for the fact that it had nuclear arms While China did not. “Even such a luxury as their statements against the treaty on the banning of

nuclear tests and their rude attacks on the Soviet Union and the Soviet Communist Party’’ could be afforded by the Chinese leaders “only because the external security of China is ensured by the might of the Soviet Union and the entire Socialist community,” it said. The Statement said that in its attitude to the pact “not only does the Government of the People's Republic of China link arms with the most aggressive circles of the imperialist powers, but even assumes the role of the man on the extreme Right in the ranks of American ’wild mien,’ West German revengeseekers and French extremists.”