ABSTRACT
On December 29, 1991, the National Congress of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) forma1ly approved the Chinese government’s decision to accede to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Three months later, on March 9, 1992, China’s accession to the NPT was completed.1 In retrospect, this was a historic moment not only in that the world’s last remaining nuclear power by that time officially embraced the NPT; this also symbolized that China had completed another important step in its transformation from a “revolutionary country” to a status quo power, and from an outsider to an insider and fellow stakeholder of the existing international system. There exists a large amount of literature on China’s changing nuclear strategies and policies.2 However, few studies have been conducted to reveal the interactive relations between these changes and the rise and fall of Mao Zedong’s revolutionary programs at home and abroad. This chapter reviews China’s changing policies toward nuclear weapons in general and its evolving attitudes toward the nuclear non-proliferation regime in particular during the Cold War, giving special attention to reconstructing the domestic and international contexts in which Beijing’s leaders formed perceptions and made policies. It begins with discussing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership’s early perceptions of the nuclear issue and its efforts to make China a nuclear power in the context of Mao’s desires to promote his “continuous revolution” domestically, and to enhance China’s position in the escalating Cold War internationally. It then discusses why and how Beijing adopted a highly critical approach toward the nuclear non-proliferation issue in the 1960s and 1970s, an approach that Beijing’s leaders did not abandon even after China became a nuclear power in 1964. It further discusses Beijing’s changing attitudes toward nuclear non-proliferation – from firm opposition to ambiguous “neutrality,” and then to explicit support and endorsement – in the context of the unfolding of China’s “reform and opening-up” process beginning in the late 1970s. It concludes by analyzing the causes underlying Beijing’s decision to formally accede to the NPT in the early 1990s, and highlights the long-range impacts of China becoming part of the NPT regime on China’s own path of development, world peace and stability in the post-Cold War era.
