The day China entered the nuclear age

Fifty years ago, the world woke up to news the nation - then at odds with Moscow and Washington - had detonated its own atomic bomb

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China's first atomic test on October 16, 1964, in Xinjiang. Mao wanted to prove the nation was a global power. Photo: SCMP Pictures

Published: 4:15am, 17 Oct 2014Updated: 5:35pm, 17 Oct 2014

Fifty years ago yesterday, China detonated its first atomic bomb, joining the United States, Soviet Union, Britain and France as the only nuclear powers at the time.

The explosion in Lop Nur in eastern Xinjiang paved the way for the nation's further development of nuclear weapons and its emergence as a world power, analysts say.

China followed up with its first hydrogen bomb test in 1967 and launched its first satellite in 1970 - dubbed the "two bombs and one satellite campaign" by Mao Zedong .

"The nuclear weapons project was launched when China was entering the most difficult period, but … it helped China win a strategic position and [bargaining power] in the international community in the 1960s," Xu Guangyu , a retired PLA major general, said.

Professor Jonathan Holslag, head of research at the Brussels Institute of Contemporary China Studies, said the test came at a tense time, with the nation locked in a stand-off with the Soviet Union and the United States.

"Even if Mao had dismissed nuclear weapons as paper tigers, they were an indispensable deterrent against the two superpowers and an important symbol of China's long-term goal of becoming a powerful nation," Holslag said.