ABSTRACT
Primitive ballistic missile (BM) technology was proliferated from the Soviet Union to China in the late 1950s. China began to proliferate advanced ballistic missiles and relevant technologies to certain Third World countries. In 1991, a western correspondent wrote from Beijing: China may annoy the United States by selling weapons to volatile areas, but this is neither new nor rooted in ideology. Engineers in the First Academy deemed that, based on technologies developed in R&D for strategic BMs, they could quickly and cost-effectively develop short-range BMs much better than the SCUDs. On April 28, 1984, the First Academy decided to start R&D on a tactical surface-to-surface BM, code-named M-9. The "M" stands for missile, an English word, which indicates that it is developed for export. The increasing western opposition to BM proliferation has made the Chinese try hard to conceal their commercial BM activities.
