How China’s ‘father of 2 bombs’ only emerged from the shadows just before his death

‘Sincere and modest’ Deng Jiaxian, who developed country’s first atomic bomb, was said to be diametrically opposed in character to Oppenheimer

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Published: 6:00am, 25 Jun 2024Updated: 4:58pm, 25 Jun 2024

As the dazzling white light swept through the silent desert and the smoke and dust rolled into a brown-red mushroom cloud, Deng Jiaxian lay face down, tears running down his face and said nothing. The project he led had been a success.

His wife Xu Luxi later recalled that six years earlier, when he was first appointed to the job he could not tell his closest family what he would be doing or his whereabouts in the coming years.

He was not even allowed to visit his seriously ill mother while working on the project and only just made it to her deathbed after the test was successfully completed in October 1964.

Deng Jiaxian, the father of China’s nuclear weapons programme. Photo: Weibo/ 光明日报

Tuesday marks the centenary of the birth of Deng, the physicist who played a key role in developing China’s atomic and hydrogen bombs and who has now become a totemic figure in the story of China’s military development known as the “father of two bombs”.

While his American counterpart Robert Oppenheimer became famous around the world – and was the subject of a major biopic last year – Deng remained unknown during his lifetime and his name was only revealed to the public one month before his death from cancer in 1986.