China’s Nuclear Weaponry

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31904, 4 February 1969, Page 15

China ’s Nuclear Weaponry

(N.Z.P.A .-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, Feb. 3. New Western estimates suggest that China may test-fire a 6000-mile-range rocket this year. This was made known yesterday by Asian and European diplomats who say their estimates are based on intelligence information pooled by several non-Communist countries, including the United States. If the Chinese test of an inter-continental ballistic missile proves successful, they say, the Peking Government will be able to begin stockpiling such weapons by 1972.. And in 1975, or thereabouts, the Chinese should be in a position to deploy 15 or 20 1.C.8.M.5.

This would denote a threeyear gain in China’s nuclear weapons programme as envisaged by American and other authorities. When the former United States Defence Secretary (Mr Robert McNamara) told the N.A.T.O. Council in midDecember, 1965, the Chinese had begun work on an 1.C.8.M. development programme, he suggested this could result in “an initial deployment as early as 1975.”

This forecast was widely accepted as a basis of Allied counter-planning. Chinese entry into the highly-exclusive long-range missile “club” would pose far-reaching military and political implications, notably for the United States.

Militarily, it might generate stronger pressures for the extension of the limited anti-ballistic-missile system already under development in the United States.

Politically, it might generate stronger pressures for ending the policies that have isolated the Chinese from the rest of the world. The latest estimates of China’s weapons programme have taken into account the December 27 test, when the Communists exploded their eighth nuclear device in the atmosphere. The diplomats give these other details of the revised Western appraisal: During 1969 the Chinese are expected to be able to test their intermediate range ballistic missile, which will have the capacity to carry 100 kiloton warheads for 1000 nautical miles. One kiloton is equivalent in explosive power to 1000 tons of T.N.T.

By 1971 or 1972 the Chinese are likely to have a stockpile of several hundred nuclear bombs, each with

an explosive force of about 10 kilotons. By about 1975 the Chinese might be expected to be deploying or stockpiling something like 100 1.R.8.M.5.

There seems no doubt among American, European, Japanese, Indian and other military men and scientists that China’s rate of progress in nuclear weaponry has surpassed expectations. The Chinese fired their first atomic bomb in October, 1964, 19 years after the Americans, 15 years after the Russians, 12 years after the British, and four years after the French. But since then they have outpaced all in the rate of progress.

However, none of this means, observers stress, that the Chinese in the decade or so ahead will be in any position to match either the Americans or the Russians in; nuclear power. I