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Article: Asia's powerful upstarts. (nuclear weapons objectives of Pakistan, India and North Korea)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- March 14, 1992
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1992 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Asia's one acknowledged nuclear power, China, has been in the club for so long that no one challenges its credentials. Not so North Korea, India and Pakistan, the three Asian upstarts at the door.
China exploded its first atomic bomb in 1964, a year before the turmoil of the cultural revolution. Its first hydrogen bomb, in 1967, came during the cultural revolution's full chaos. Yet despite China's instability, its bomb alarmed few Asians. It was intended mainly to counter the Soviet Union rather than India, with which China had fought a border war in 1962. It never seemed likely that hot-heads would get their fingers on China's nuclear trigger.
North ...