Universal History Annotation << Back «THE PAPER TIGER» OF THE CHINESE CHAIRMAN MAO V.V. Kuznetsova The history of «The Chinese atomic project» remains as yet scarcely known. Information on the theme are dispersed in few Russian, English and Chinese publications. Hereafter it seems to be useful to make an essay consisted of the most interesting key moments of this Chinese epopee which has an enormous infl uence on the balance of forces in the modern world. In 1949, when Мао Tsetoung made his fi rst visit to Stalin he asked the Soviet leader to give to China a couple atomic bombs. Stalin replied that it was not necessary for China is feasibly protected by the USSR. Nevertheless Mao dreamed of his own atomic bomb. But Khrushchev also refused to transfer our atomic weapons to China. In January, 1955, the Politbiuro of the Chinese Communist Party confi rmed the Mao’s determination to make chinese atomic bomb at any price. In the USSR many thousand students and specialists were studying nuclear physics, radiochemistry and other things they needed for making their bomb. The USSR built up in China cyclotron, physical reactor for nuclear researches, worked up gas diffusion plant for separate uranium isotopes. Soviet geologists discovered and prospected several uranium deposits in China, helped enrich uranium ores and produce uranium concentrates. Nevertheless the Chinese did not received working drawings and tolerance parameters of atomic bomb blocks. Method of calculation of degree of implosion of the nuclear charge was not given to the Chinese. Still, in 1950-ies, the USSR donated to China several rockets which represented modernised versions of German rockets V-2. Several strategic bombers Tu-4 and one Tu-16 were sold to the Chinese army. To begin with 1959 the relations between Mao and Khrushchev were spoiling more and more. Yhe USSR recalled all Soviet specialists from China. In 1964, October, 16, the Prime Minister of China Tchou Enlayannounced, that the fi rst Chinese atomic bomb has just been exploded on the polygon Lop Nur, in the Norh-East province of China. In 1967, June, 17, the fi rst hydrogen chinese bomb was succesfully tested in Lop Nur. It was quite a modern model having the atomic detonator of plutonium. After being explosed, it greately compressed the lithium deuteride charge of the H-bomb with powerful X-rays irradiation at enormous temperature. Such implosion of deuterium-tritium mixture charge results in explosion of H bomb. Its power was 3,3 Mt. Keywords: China, Chinese People’s Republic, Mao Tsetung, Tchou enlay, mareshall Tchen’I, Khrushchev, atomic bomb, hydrogen bomb, polygon Lop Nur. Contacts: E-mail: megapolice@inbox.ru Pp. 78-87.