China Builds the Bomb (Isis Studies in International Security & Arms Control)

Rating:
Summary: China's insecurity/ Mao's paper tiger !!
Review: A rich and facinating account of how China made the decision to build the bomb. The origins of the Chinese nuclear program were made during the Eisenhower administration desion to reduce American troops in Korea. During this period, Eisenhower decided to increase American strategic forces (nuclear), thus adding to Chinese insecurity. According to the book, Mao wanted a paper tiger and the nuclear bomb was the answer.

The book also details how Soviet advisors provided the Chinese with baseline technical information for theroretical experimentation and fabrication of the first bomb. The book makes clear that the Sino-Soviet alliance was a shakey mutual military agreement at best. Moscow wanted total control of Soviet/Chinese military operations and how Chinese military leaders resisted these attempts by Moscow and decided to expel Soviet advisors. The book also explains how the CIA blew the call: They predicated a pultonium core and in fact the Chinese built a uranium-235 core.

A must for anyone interested in understanding American/Chinese Foreign policy in present day Chinese-Amercian relations

Rating:
Summary: Chinese Bomb - Chairman Mao's basic believe.
Review: Lest when my review is read, readers will think I'm sympathetic to Chinese socialism. The fact is I am not. I have read the book - China Builds The Bomb - some years ago. This book must be read in the perspective of China's recent history. In the Chinese world of the l960's, internally, China was beset with how to feed her people due to a series of natural calamities and externally, how to defend itself from its neighbour - the unfriendly Soviet Union as well as hostility from United States.

China's intention to build the bomb was basically for self-defense and not to threaten others nor for sable-rattling. I think China had achieved its aim of protecting itself. China's knowledge in building the bomb was based mainly on her core of scientific people, public sacrifices and native innovations. Chinese people realized long ago that the defense of their nation depended on the resolve and determination of themselves. The fact that against seemingly insurmountable odds, both technical and scientific, the Chinese people could build first the atomic bomb and then the hydrogen bomb, prove beyond a shadow of doubt of the saying: "Necessity is the mother of invention." Since then, I have read this acclaimed book several time, and each time when I read it, I couldn't help thinking that my ancestral country - China - despite being bullied and invaded the last 50 years by foreign powers, the people are resolved never to be weak again in the predatory world of today! Thank you.