(October 16, 1964)
At 3:00 p.m. on October 16, 1964, China detonated an atomic bomb, successfully conducting its first nuclear test. This was a major achievement attained by the Chinese people in their struggle to strengthen national defense and oppose U.S. imperialist nuclear blackmail and the policy of nuclear threat.


To safeguard oneself is an inalienable right of any sovereign state. Upholding world peace, however, is the common duty of all peace-loving nations. Faced with the ever-increasing nuclear threat from the United States, China could not remain passive. China’s decision to conduct nuclear tests and develop nuclear weapons was one taken under duress.


The Chinese government has consistently advocated for the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons. Had this position been realized, China would never have had to develop such weapons. Yet our stance has met with staunch resistance from U.S. imperialism. The Chinese government has long pointed out that the Partial Test Ban Treaty signed in Moscow in July 1963 by the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union was a colossal deception designed to fool the world’s peoples. By seeking to consolidate the monopoly of these three nuclear powers while shackling the hands of all peace-loving nations, the treaty has not only failed to reduce the nuclear threat posed by imperialism to the Chinese people and to humanity at large; it has actually intensified that threat. Even then, the U.S. government openly declared that signing the treaty in no way implied a cessation of underground nuclear testing, nor a renunciation of the use, production, stockpiling, export, or proliferation of nuclear weapons. The facts of the past year and more have fully confirmed this.


Over the past year and more, the United States has continued unabated to produce a wide array of nuclear weapons based on the tests it has already conducted.
Moreover, striving for ever greater sophistication, the United States has carried out several underground nuclear tests during this period, further perfecting its nuclear arsenal. U.S. nuclear submarines have been deployed to Japan, posing a direct threat to the Japanese people, the Chinese people, and the peoples of other Asian countries. Through the so-called “multilateral nuclear force” initiative, the United States is spreading nuclear weapons into the hands of West German revisionists, thereby menacing the security of the German Democratic Republic and the socialist states of Eastern Europe. U.S. submarines armed with Polaris missiles tipped with nuclear warheads ply the Taiwan Strait, the Gulf of Tonkin, the Mediterranean Sea, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean, menacing peace-loving nations and all peoples who resist imperialism and both old and new forms of colonialism. Under these circumstances, how can anyone conclude that the U.S. no longer engages in nuclear blackmail or poses a nuclear threat to the world simply because it has temporarily refrained from atmospheric nuclear tests?


As everyone knows, Chairman Mao Zedong famously said that the atomic bomb is a paper tiger. We held this view in the past, and we continue to hold it today. China’s development of nuclear weapons does not stem from any belief in their omnipotence or an intention to use them. On the contrary, China’s pursuit of nuclear capability is precisely aimed at breaking the nuclear monopoly of the major nuclear powers and ultimately abolishing nuclear weapons altogether.


The Chinese government remains faithful to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. We place our trust in the people. It is human beings, not any weapon, who determine the outcome of war.


China’s destiny rests with the Chinese people, just as the fate of the world depends on the peoples of all nations, rather than on weaponry. China’s development of nuclear weapons is purely defensive in nature—designed to protect the Chinese people from the threat of nuclear war initiated by the United States.


The Chinese government solemnly declares that, under any circumstances whatsoever, China will never be the first to use nuclear weapons.


The Chinese people firmly support the liberation struggles of all oppressed nations and peoples worldwide. We are convinced that, through their own struggles combined with mutual assistance, the peoples of all countries can surely achieve victory. China’s possession of nuclear weapons serves as a tremendous source of inspiration for revolutionary peoples engaged in struggle and constitutes a significant contribution to the cause of safeguarding world peace. On the issue of nuclear weapons, China will neither fall into adventurism nor capitulationism. The Chinese people can be relied upon.


The Chinese government fully understands the sincere desire of peace-loving nations and peoples to see all nuclear testing brought to a halt. However, an increasing number of governments recognize that the greater the degree to which nuclear weapons are monopolized by U.S. imperialism and its allies, the more acute the danger of nuclear war becomes. They possess these weapons; you do not—and they act accordingly with great arrogance. Once those opposed to them also acquire nuclear arms, their swagger diminishes, their policies of nuclear blackmail and intimidation lose their effectiveness, and the prospects for achieving a comprehensive ban and complete elimination of nuclear weapons grow brighter. It is our heartfelt hope that nuclear war will never break out. We firmly believe that, through the concerted efforts of all peace-loving nations and peoples around the globe, persisting in their struggle, nuclear war can indeed be prevented.


The Chinese government hereby makes a solemn proposal to the governments of all nations:
Convene a summit of world leaders to discuss the issue of a comprehensive ban and the complete destruction of nuclear weapons. As a first step, such a summit should reach an agreement whereby nuclear-armed states and those soon likely to become so undertake the obligation not to use nuclear weapons, not to threaten non-nuclear-weapon states with their use, not to target nuclear-weapon-free zones, and not to employ nuclear weapons against one another.


If even states already possessing substantial nuclear arsenals cannot commit to refraining from using such weapons, how can those still without them be expected to trust in their professed peaceful intentions and refrain from taking appropriate and necessary defensive measures?


The Chinese government will, as always, make every possible effort through international consultations to advance the noble goal of a comprehensive ban and the complete destruction of nuclear weapons. Until that day arrives, the Chinese government and the Chinese people will steadfastly follow their own path, strengthening national defense, safeguarding the motherland, and defending world peace.


We are convinced that nuclear weapons are man-made, and it is within humanity’s power to eliminate them.