The Hindu : International : U.S. threat forced change in China's economic strategy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 31, 2006

International

International

U.S. threat forced change in China's economic strategy

Washington considered air strike on nuclear sites, says book Chairman Mao Zedong changed the focus of the Third Five-Year Plan

BEIJING: A newly-published book has said that a clandestine plan by the United States to make an air raid on China's first nuclear weapon facilities 42 years ago forced Chinese leaders to alter the nation's economic development strategy.

The sudden change of the development strategy, which governed all the national economic plans from 1966 to 1970, was revealed in an academic book titled "The Research Report on China's Ten Five-Year Plans," issued by China's top think-tank, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) here on Tuesday.

The book was compiled by the prominent economist Liu Guoguang and a few experts from the CASS.

The book said that Chairman Mao Zedong changed the focus of the Third Five-Year Plan (1966-70) on improving people's livelihood to preparing an all-out war against the ``imperialists,'' particularly the United States.

In a bid to alleviate the economic hardship of the Chinese people resulting from the big famines of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the central leadership, steered by Chairman Mao, had decided to reinvigorate the sluggish national economy in the five years between 1966 and 1970. The priority tasks should have been, according to authoritative documents, addressing the shortage of food, clothes and other daily consumption goods.

However, the book said, the prevailing world situation and the war scenario made Mao change the consensus-based economic strategy.

According to a declassified top secret document datelined December 14, 1964, and written by George G. Rathjens of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, U.S. decision-makers seriously considered the possibility of an ``overt non-nuclear air attack.'' On October 16, 1964, China tested its first atom bomb in Lop Nur.

Though the U.S. did not attack the nuclear facilities, the Chinese leadership moved important factories, universities and confidential government facilities to remote areas in southwest China. — Xinhua

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