US to Chineese General: Threatening to Nuke LA Is Bad For Relations

This article is kind of OLD. Things have changed much since 1995. Most of the leaders in China now seem to realize that keeping a good relationship with US is very important to both country. And China would not challenge the role of US as the ONLY superpower in the forseeable future.

I believe China will become a democratic country in 20 years. Given the facts that how much have already changed in China in the past 2 decades, if you know what i mean.

 

Sorry I did not read the original post completely. I thought it was an old article from Washington post, but it is not. Anyway, my point is that China has changed much since 1995.

 

You have the ability to edit the title of your post for a few minutes after your original submission. When you click on the edit button, simply retype your title. Since your 2 posts were within a minute or so of each other then the opportunity was there.

 

what?? how is threatening a nation with nuclear weapons a bad thing for relations??

 

I'm curious in the history of How and when China became a nuclear power tho'. Anybody know....

 

That is such a stupid thing for a General to say. If they dropped a nuclear bomb on LA, then we do the same thing to one of their cities and probably more. This would essentially translate into a nuclear holocaust because one strike would result in a retaliation strike and the missiles may not stop flying.

I can't believe how absurd a statement that is. In the end...if that happened, China may end up completely annihilated(with surrounding countries screwed from the fallout) and we would be pretty bad off with a lot of our major cities destroyed with fallout everywhere.

Maybe Condoleeza Rice should have just told him that in response to his absurd statement. Is the goal of China to cease to exist all because they started a nuclear war over Taiwan? We would never first strike nuclear unless WoMD were used against us or our forces overseas and the target was verifiable.

Enuff said...think before you talk next time...General. Seems like that statement came from watching the movie "1941" were Japan had a submarine off the LA coast and launched a strike at an amusement park. His imagination got the better of him...apparently.

 

If the Chinese nuked LA, they would only be doing America a favor. LA is nuclear dump already. Why not finish the job!

 

<A HREF="http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1991/may91/may91fieldhouse.html">China's mixed signals on nuclear weapons.</A>

<i>..........<b>A crash program</b>

Mao may have determined personally even before 1949 that China should have its own nuclear weapons, but the government could not act on this imperative until January 15, 1955, when Mao and the Chinese leadership formally decided to obtain their own nuclear rsenal, with Soviet assistance. Believing that the United States might attack it with nuclear weapons, China was eager to
achieve nuclear capability as quickly as possible. It was both natural and necessary to turn to the Soviets for help. On February 14, 1950, China and the Soviet Union had signed a 30-year Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance. This set the stage for massive Soviet arms assistance to China during the Korean War and afterward. At that time nobody imagined that within a decade the Soviet Union would be China's main adversary and the eventual target for virtually all of China's nuclear eapons.

China's quest for nuclear weapons was especially difficult since it began from scratch: China had virtually no adequately trained personnel, no nuclear experience, and no equipment or facilities for the project. Unlike other nuclear powers, China launched a crash program that was to pursue all tasks simultaneously, mastering nuclear and then-non-nuclear weapon theory,
technology, design, and construction in the shortest time possible. This was in addition to a similar effort to produce the missiles and aircraft that would carry the nuclear weapons. Soviet assistance was therefore absolutely essential.

The Soviets designed and built China's aircraft industry and its initial nuclear weapons infrastructure, including equipment, plans, and training. On October 15, 1957, the two nations signed the New Defense Technical Accord in which the Soviets promised, among other things, to supply China with blueprints for, and a working prototype of, an atom bomb, as well as missiles.

Proceeding with Soviet assistance, China began the process of building nuclear weapons by searching for uranium deposits. This massive effort led to substantial finds and opened the way for research on extracting, concentrating, processing, and enriching uranium for bombs. Having learned from U.S. and Soviet experience and having Soviet design help, China chose the gaseous diffusion method of enriching uranium to weapon grade.
<b>
The split</b>

The Sino-Soviet ideological rift grew so wide that the two nations entered what the CIA called "their own 'cold war," (6) and the Soviets reneged on their promises in June 1960. (7) By August 24 all Soviet aid to the Chinese nuclear program was over, and all Soviet advisers had left China. Nonetheless, the Soviet help saved China years of effort and incalculable cost, and permitted China to advance far beyond its existing indigenous abilities.

Naturally, China was bitter about the Soviet action and was forced to practice what it preached about self-reliance, a lesson etched deep on the Chinese psyche. In the end China would point with pride to its own considerable nuclear accomplishments. But the split caused major disruptions to the program, forcing China to reorganize its all-at- once approach. China made uranium enrichment the highest priority and suspended work on plutonium production.

The Soviet pull-out caused delays in the construction of the main gaseous diffusion plant at Lanzhou and brought to a halt design and construction work in the main plutonium production and processing center in Subei county. A nuclear fuel component plant was built in Baotou, for producing uranium tetrafluoride, nuclear fuel rods, and lithium-6 deuteride. Plutonium work was resumed after China's first nuclear test in 1964 and the Subei facility is now known as the Jiuquan Atomic Energy Complex, where nuclear weapons also are assembled. A nuclear weapon design academy was established near Haiyan, east of Lake Qinghai......</i>


<b></b>
A timeline of some major events in nulcear weapons testing.

<A HREF="http://www.clw.org/control/ctbchron.html">The History of Nuclear Testing: A Chronology</A>


<A HREF="http://www.ceip.org/files/Publications/China's%20Nuclear%20Weapons11.asp?p=8&from=pubdate">China's Nuclear Weapons</A>


<b>Growing business ties between China and Taiwan</b>

<A HREF="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/DJ26Ad05.html">Jiang and Bush: The business of Taiwan</A>


Finally and off topic, but a startling article on trends for AIDS/HIV in Russia, India and China. What has happened in Africa seems to be off the radar screen for the rest of the world, but eventually this topic will be harder to ignore.
<A HREF="http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20021101faessay9990/nicholas-eberstadt/the-future-of-aids.html">The Future of AIDS</A>