Talk:China and weapons of mass destruction

Untitled

China can mass produce thousands of hydrogen bomb if they want to, so the figure can never be accurate. They may have 200 now, and they may have 1000 the next month. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.8.135.172 (talk) 20:01, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Many nuclear powers can produce a lot if they want to. Many "peace-loving" countries like Japan do have the capability to produce a lot in a short time. The numbers are not meaningless. Your comment is. -Friend2008 (talk) 06:19, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

History?

What was the history of the development of China's nuclear programme up to 1964? Where was it based? What technologies did it use? Did it gain any advantage from foreign technology? How long did it take?

These are all questions that I think it would be good for the article to cover (or a spin-off article, on the early development of the Chinese military nuclear programme).

Mentioned in passing in an article in today's Daily Telegraph [1] is that the U.S. proposed a joint pre-emptive U.S.-Soviet attack on the Chinese nuclear sites in 1964, but was rebuffed. Is any more known about this?

Can anyone suggest a bibliography of the best reliable sources for the history in this area? Jheald (talk) 12:31, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree that there should be a section regarding the PRC's nuclear weapons program and development leading up to their 1964 test. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doyna Yar (talk • contribs) 17:28, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

The only nuclear state with a security assurance to non-nuclear states?

In the section on China's nuclear policy, the article says China is the only NWS no guarantee that no nukes will be used against nonnuclear states. I think this is outdated; didn't President Obama say the U.S. won't do that. I think he said that in early April 2010. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Malarauko (talk • contribs) 15:06, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Please give detail. I don't think it was a solid national policy even if he did say so in an occasion-Friend2008 (talk) 06:08, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposed merge with China's nuclear testing series

A section in China and weapons of mass destruction should be started to accommodate current article. Cheers AKS 10:01, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Copied from the other talk page: Dang, I only created that page tonight (I think; its late)  :) . Give me a week or two to get some things further organized. This page is a part of a structure walking downwards from Worldwide nuclear testing counts and summary all the way to the 2000+ individual testing events level, and I finally have it all pretty much in place. I'm more than happy with a link to the page in the appropriate place (and that goes for all the other countries as well). Cheers, and a happy new year. SkoreKeep (talk) 10:12, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

This same merge has been suggested for three countries: France, Great Britain and China. To comment on this merge as well as the other two, go to Talk:France and weapons of mass destruction#Proposed merge with France's nuclear testing series to make comments. SkoreKeep (talk) 09:19, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:China and weapons of mass destruction/CommentsTalk:China and weapons of mass destruction/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

I just want to say this article should explain when and how America started to share nuclear weapons info. with China while they were good allies. It doesn't let us know in the article. America made a stupid mistake there if you ask me.

Last edited at 03:34, 11 August 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 11:31, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Photo

We need a photo to verify the entire article (or video).174.125.73.246 (talk) 13:51, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

feel free to add a new pic!.--Bolzanobozen (talk) 18:39, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi

a new photo to verify the entire article would be good!.--Bolzanobozen (talk) 18:41, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

problematic passages

>While he did not expect to be able to match the large American nuclear arsenal, Mao believed that even a few bombs would increase China's diplomatic credibility.[citation needed]

citation needed, indeed. Is this Mao's words or the opinion of the person who wrote this sentence ?

>The American government under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson was concerned about the program and studied ways to sabotage or attack it, perhaps with the aid of Taiwan or the Soviet Union, but Khrushchev was not interested.

Yeah, ok. Source for that incredibly loaded claim ? Or I guess someone can put a citation needed tag there too.2607:FEA8:531F:CBC0:6DB0:A6EB:135C:B157 (talk) 01:38, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

For the latter, see the inline source a few sentences later, I have clarified the sentence to state that these are only the words of one (albeit influential) person. Pieceofmetalwork (talk) 17:31, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:France and weapons of mass destruction which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 00:31, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Article scope

Per @Amigao's recent revert (understandable) I'd like to establish how much the article can cover cases where other countries weapons of mass destruction have been alleged to affect China. There are quite a few examples of this in the 1999 FAS conference document. I think they belong in this article because:

• The article is called "China and weapons of mass destruction" not "Weapons of mass destruction of China"
• Some of these cases can be demonstrated to influence China's policy on its own WMDs e.g. US nuclear threats in the 1950s
• Even if a link can't be demonstrated it is relevant to this article based on the title
• Other WMD articles like for Japan and Iran mention the effects of other countries' WMDs

Doeze (talk) 20:34, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

I didn't review the specific edits, but the general idea of including WMD issues related to China that are not related to its own programs seems fine to me. As you point out, it is "and" in the article title. JArthur1984 (talk) 21:23, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

The “pre-modern” section strikes me as outside page scope and a form of SYNTH unless sources are specifically considering this in the context of “weapons of mass destruction.”

I think the interwar addition is quite good. JArthur1984 (talk) 22:19, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

Delivery systems

The extensive sub-sections on delivery systems under 'Nuclear weapons' are outdated and certain parts are now inaccurate. Thoughts on the best way to re-organize/trim? - Amigao (talk) 05:20, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Create a page called "Nuclear weapons of China", move historical speculation to that page, on this page describe the current systems only. It is still somewhat relevant to that page that Western analysts formerly assessed Chinese nuclear capability with gravity bombs or GLCMs or whatever even if they don't anymore. Doeze (talk) 11:56, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

I have copied the nuclear lead section and nuclear section into Draft:Nuclear weapons and China, and added some placeholder see alsos. I think this would be a good opportunity to expand the article there without cluttering here, including important dedicated sections for neglected aspects e.g. Theoretical background; Testing program; Espionage against the program; Espionage by China; Early warning/ABM systems; Ballistic missile proliferation/space program; In popular culture. We can then trim the section in this page back. Doeze (talk) 19:29, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

It probably makes sense to have a stand-alone article for it, though per WP:CONSISTENT, the title should look something more like Nuclear weapons of the United States and Nuclear weapons of the United Kingdom. - Amigao (talk) 19:33, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

You're right my mistake Doeze (talk) 21:10, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

@Amigao @JArthur1984 @NPguy Do any of you oppose creating the draft directly as a page, to prevent live edits here from not being mirrored, and to allow abbreviation of parts to start here? Doeze (talk) 21:31, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

I’ve become confused about the scope of the proposal, I’m sorry, I don’t know if I have

much input. But I do generally think creating new pages in the main space, even if they need more work, is better than leaving them in the draft space. If that’s the question? JArthur1984 (talk) 01:39, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Yeah it is thanks. The scope of the other article is anything related to China's nuclear weapons. This article can then have the nuclear sections abbreviated down a bit/excerpts. Doeze (talk) 14:56, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

No objection to moving this to the main space. Is there supposed to be a formal review first? NPguy (talk) 17:02, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

There should be either way. The main space article may be marked for deletion but I doubt it. I suggest you move your draft edits to the main space and blank the draft. There are also various non-free images of Julang testing and from Hui Zhang's thermonuclear development article that could be suggested for the article. Doeze (talk) 17:56, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Sometimes moving to talk page as an archive, with a note on edit summary and on Talk that it needs a comprehensive update, can preserve it for someone in the future to work on. JArthur1984 (talk) 14:18, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Up-to-date information can be found from FAS and the 2024 DOD report.NPguy (talk) 17:38, 18 November 2025 (UTC)