Red China: Who Needs Pants?

Peking last week publicly admitted that Red China will not have its long-promised nuclear bomb for a long time to come. Foreign Minister Marshal Chen Yi conceded that economic troubles and the quarrel with the Russians (who withdrew their technicians and broke an atomic-aid treaty) have seriously delayed Peking’s atomic program. It would be “several years,” Chen told visiting Japanese correspondents, before the regime could even test a crude atom bomb.

But China is far from giving up its nuclear ambitions. Some time ago, Khrushchev warned that any country trying to build a bomb without adequate resources might lose its pants. Nevertheless, said Chen, sounding like an echo of Charles de Gaulle, “at the risk of losing our pants, we are determined to go ahead and build our own atomic bombs. Otherwise we will end up as a second-or third-class nation.”