China Briefing | Worst outcome for latest Korean tensions? The status quo
The crisis on the Korean Peninsula triggers cold war memories, and the time may have come for China to embrace its lessons about nuclear brinkmanship and bargain with the US to avoid worse problems in the future
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, when I was growing up in an industrial backwater town in the northeastern province of Jilin, the spectre of nuclear attacks from “American Imperialists” or “Soviet Revisionists” was palpable.
Primary school pupils were made to watch black and white films on how to protect against the effects of a nuclear explosion, a useless gimmick not unlike the “Duck and Cover” film that was popular in the west at the same time.
Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) dictum to “dig tunnels deep, store grain everywhere, and never seek hegemony” was plastered on buildings on the streets.
But if there were fears, they were more than mitigated by the fiery propaganda about China’s own nuclear power in a country where nationalist zeal, ideological fervour and unparalleled worship towards “the brilliant leadership of Chairman Mao” had made the masses believe China was invincible.
It was only much later that we learnt – as Mao decided to develop nuclear weapons to counter nuclear threats from the United States and gain international recognition on the world stage – that China had paid a horrific price. Precious resources had been diverted to develop bombs at a time when millions of Chinese people were dying of starvation in the 1950s and 1960s.
