Red China: Peking’s Big Blast

Seismographs in Tokyo and Seattle shuddered from a distant explosion last week. From Peking came a boastful announcement: “China successfully exploded her first hydrogen bomb over the western region today.” The Chinese left no doubt that the explosion was meant as a political blast. Calling it “a splendid achievement of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,” Peking added: “China’s hydrogen-bomb test will give very great support to the people of Viet Nam, fighting against the U.S., and to the Arab people, who are resisting the Israeli aggressors.”

The timing was contrived. The news flashed from Peking within an hour after the U.N. General Assembly convened. For all Peking’s bluster, however, the Chinese are obviously too far removed from the Middle East to interfere. Since they set off their first A-bomb on Oct. 16, 1964, they have been unable to gain any diplomatic leverage from their nuclear capacity. The U.S. has been expecting the Chinese to go H ever since last fall. American experts detected traces of enriched uranium in the fallout of China’s third and fifth A-bomb explosions—clues that it was developing nuclear triggers to set off hydrogen warheads. U.S. experts guessed that last week’s bomb, which was detonated in the air over the Sinkiang desert, was probably a standard fission-fusion-fission device in the “several megaton” range.

Fortunately, the Chinese so far have only lumbering, overage Soviet-designed bombers in which to carry their H-bombs. But they test-fired an intermediate-range (1,000 miles) missile last October. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara has warned that the Chinese will have effective IRBMs in limited numbers by 1969, and ICBMs capable of reaching the continental U.S. by the mid-1970s. Last week’s H-blast was certain to step up clamor in Congress for an immediate start on the deployment of an anti-ballistic missile net. It may also prompt India and other nations to decide to build their own nuclear weapons.

Despite the Disorders. If any country ever seemed too irrational to possess weapons of mass destruction, it is Mao Tse-tung’s China. In the nine months since the aging (73) Mao launched his xenophobic Cultural Revolution, China has lurched dangerously close to anarchy and hysteria. Government control has broken down in vast areas. Even Mao’s own forces of Red Guards, workers and army troops have started fighting among themselves. The wall posters in Peking tell of daily bloody battles, riots and vandalism all across the stricken land. Red China’s blast showed that, despite all of the disorders, its nuclear program was moving relentlessly ahead.