Red China: Start of the Chain

As the fallout from Peking's nuclear firecracker wafted toward the West, the political chain reaction had only begun. Taking full propaganda advantage of its feat, Red China unctuously dispatched messages to heads of state, among them President Johnson, urging a summit conference to discuss nuclear disarmament. U.N. Secretary-General U Thant took up the call, suggested a meeting perhaps next year. The U.S. State Department had already rejected Red China's ploy, calling it "a sucker proposal" since it made no mention of inspection. If the Chinese are really concerned about all this, said the U.S., they can always sign the partial test ban treaty.

But the unavoidable dilemma remained: what to do about a Communist China that, in the foreseeable future, will be a nuclear power.

Revised Version. Latest intelligence on the device exploded in the Sinkiang Desert indicates that it was slightly stronger and more sophisticated than the U.S. first thought (see SCIENCE). And though it might take 15 or 20 years for the Chinese to develop an intercontinental missile capable of hitting the U.S., Peking may be able to deliver a nuclear bomb along its periphery in as little as five years.

Any type of delivery system, no matter how crude, could vastly change the strategic balance in Asia. In fact, it has subtly changed already, confirming many Asians in their growing belief in an eventual Communist takeover of all Asia, shaking hitherto staunch anti-Communists in their resolve-and giving other nations nuclear ideas. Thanks mostly to technology supplied by the U.S., a dozen or more countries-among them Egypt, Israel, India, Japan, West Germany and Mexico-possess reactors capable of producing uranium or plutonium. The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission estimates that nowadays, for an investment of $50 million, a country can establish enough plutonium production to manufacture one crude weapon a year. Communist China's example, as President Johnson puts it, "tempts other states to equal folly."

The Alternatives. Except on Chiang Kai-shek's Formosa, there is remarkably little talk of curbing Peking's folly by hitting the Chinese before they are really strong enough to hit back. In Washington, a U.S. Congressman asked Secretary of State Dean Rusk why the U.S. had not "detonated that bomb for them"-in other words, blown up Peking's embryo nuclear establishment. Rusk replied: "We considered this but decided against it." In effect, such a decision, in all probability, would not be merely to take out a bomb or a plant, but to go to war with China-and perhaps ultimately with Russia.