CHINA’S BOMB HAS WARM GREETING

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30575, 19 October 1964, Page 13

CHINA’S BOMB HAS WARM GREETING

Copyright) PEKING, October 18. Chinese newspapers splashed the Government’s statement on China’s successful atomic explosion under big headlines but gave no new details on the test.

The second headline in the “People’s Daily,” the Communist Party organ, and other newspapers said: “Great contribution to world peace.”

The second item on the “People’s Daily” front page was a message of congratulations from Mao-tse Tung and other Chinese leaders to Mr Leonid Brezhnev and Mr Alexei Kosygin on their appointment to lead the Soviet Communist Party and Government respectively and also on the recent successful Soviet three-man space shot.

Observers noted the warm tone of the Chinese message which said: “May the fraternal and unbreakable friendship between the Chinese and Soviet peoples continuously develop.” Neither in the message nor elsewhere in Peking newspapers today was there any mention of Mr Khrushchev, who was still Soviet leader when the spaceship was launched, and whom the Chinese have named the chief “splitter” in the ChineseSoviet dispute. Observers said that though Mr Khrushchev’s departure and the Chinese nuclear test were undoubtedly major triumphs for the Chinese leadership, the Chinese were apparently adopting a “wait and see” attitude to both. There has been no official comment on the Soviet leadership changes and observers believe the Chinese

i will now closely watch the new leaders for signs of whether they intend to continue the policies of the “revisionist Khrushchev clique.” On the atomic test observers said China was obviously hoping to win prestige among nations which attended the recent nonaligned conference in Cairo as the first Asian power with atomic weapons and increase the image of her military might—already formidable with large conventional

armed forces and militia. The standing committee of the Chinese National People's Congress met this morning to discuss the successful explosion of China’s first atomic bomb, the New China news agency reported. The agency said the committee stressed that the blast was a victory for the Chinese Communist Party's general line of “going all out, aiming high and achieving more faster, giving better and more economical results in building socialism.”