Prologue: New China made a difficult start in the blockade
On October 1, 1949, Chairman Mao solemnly proclaimed the founding of New China on the tower of Tiananmen Square.
After 28 years of arduous struggle and the bloody sacrifices of countless heroes and martyrs, Chairman Mao led the Chinese people to finally establish a new country without the oppression of the "three mountains", without war and aggression in this ancient land.
However, how to ensure that New China and its long-suffering people are not invaded by imperialism and are not tormented by poverty, hunger, and disease has become a serious problem that Chairman Mao and the founding fathers of that generation will have to face next.
The remnants of imperialism, swept out of Chinese soil without mercy by the iron brooms of the People's Liberation Army, still intend to make a comeback at all times.
After the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, they further colluded with chiang kai-shek's reactionaries who had retreated to Taiwan and sharpened their knives against the people's power.
In order to defeat the powerful Chinese Volunteer Army on the Korean battlefield, the capitalist camp led by the United States adopted a series of blockades, sanctions, and international demonization policies against new China.
Obviously, it is unrealistic to establish a truly equal, mutually beneficial and peaceful coexistence relationship with these capitalist countries at the beginning of the founding of the country.
Therefore, at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the foreign policy of New China could only be to actively move closer to the socialist countries headed by the Soviet Union.
On October 2, 1949, the Soviet Union announced its recognition of the government of the People's Republic of China, and in the following week, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Korea, Poland and other countries successively recognized New China and established formal diplomatic relations with the mainland.
Chairman Mao visited the Soviet Union
In order to support the Chinese people in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the Soviet Government gave positive assistance to New China, not only sending part of its air force into the skies over Korea to support the volunteer army in combat, but also providing New China with weapons and equipment that could arm 64 army divisions and 23 air force divisions for a fee.
By 1955, the Soviet Union had provided China with in-kind assistance worth $4 billion, or about 10 billion yuan, of which weapons and equipment accounted for 40 percent, as well as 156 industrial projects and a large number of experts and technicians aiding China, of which a large number of core technologies were equivalent to free gifts.
By the time of the completion of New China's First Five-Year Plan in 1957, nearly 70 industrial projects had been completed and put into operation in these aid projects.
These include the famous Anshan Iron and Steel Company, Shenyang Aircraft Manufacturing Company, Changchun First Automobile Manufacturing Plant, Wuhan Iron and Steel Company, North China Pharmaceutical Factory, etc., which are almost household names in mainland China before the reform and opening up.
It is worth mentioning that the Soviet Union also provided a large amount of educational assistance to New China, including assisting in the establishment of nearly 100 higher and technical schools such as Chinese Min University, as well as subsidizing a large number of Chinese students to study in the Soviet Union.
It should be said that in the early days of the founding of New China, the Soviet Union provided much-needed and valuable help to the mainland, and it was precisely these strong supports that helped New China lay its own heavy industrial foundation in just ten years.
First, the development of the atomic bomb: New China has chosen an independent road
In September 1954, Khrushchev succeeded Stalin as the supreme leader of the Soviet Union, and on the issue of aid to China, he continued the policy of the Stalin period and further expanded the scope and extent of aid.
However, although the Soviet Union was very attentive and even somewhat proactive at the beginning, Chairman Mao had his own considerations for China's development.
He had long recognized that Soviet aid had a more far-reaching purpose than just to reap the economic costs of China. The People's Volunteers fought bloodily on the Korean Peninsula with the "United Nations Army" for three years in exchange for a "five-year plan" with the assistance of the Soviet Union, and now Khrushchev has taken the initiative to provide additional assistance, no doubt to bring China closer to his side.
In the year of the founding of New China, the Cold War between the two camps had begun for more than two years, and most countries in the world had to face the dilemma of "choosing sides" between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Soviet comrades participated in the National Day celebrations
Although China has relatively close relations with the Soviet Union due to its objective needs, the road that New China will eventually take is a road of independence and self-reliance, relying on its own strength to safeguard national sovereignty and reunification.
Moreover, since he realized the power of the atomic bomb from the video during his visit to the Soviet Union in 1950, Chairman Mao has judged that if China wants to become a world power in the future, it must have its own nuclear weapons. He told his entourage:
"This time to the Soviet Union, eye-opening mile! It seems that the atomic bomb can scare many people. The United States has it, the Soviet Union has it, and we can do a little bit of it. ”
Since the beginning of the Korean War, the United States has repeatedly threatened to use atomic bombs against New China, but we have no atomic bombs and no corresponding nuclear containment forces.
In September 1954, Khrushchev visited China to participate in the celebration of the fifth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and the US Seventh Fleet also entered the Taiwan Strait, and the situation in the Taiwan Strait was suddenly tense.
When Chairman Mao met with Khrushchev, he expressed the hope that the Soviet Union would help New China develop the cause of atomic bombs and missiles, but Khrushchev did not respond.
He knew very well that the strategic deterrent of the atomic bomb could not be handed over to New China, because once New China also had an atomic bomb, it might not be so "obedient" in the international community.
So he laid out a whole bunch of reasons: nuclear weapons are expensive to develop, and they have to deteriorate and be eliminated after a long storage time, and most importantly, there is a Soviet "nuclear umbrella" that new China wants is useless.
Of course, this cannot shake Chairman Mao's determination to let New China possess the atomic bomb, and in the future world, without nuclear weapons, we will have to look at the faces of others!
In January 1955, New China began to develop the atomic bomb independently.
Although the Soviet Union began to send experts to assist China in the development of nuclear weapons from 1957, it took only a little more than 2 years for the Soviet Union to withdraw all the experts who aided China, took away all the drawings, and the factories that were only half built were abandoned.
Chairman Mao and Qian Xuesen
At this time, New China was still in the period of three years of natural disasters, and the country's economic situation was very difficult.
Faced with such a dilemma, Chinese people chose to rely on themselves and build the atomic bomb by themselves. Chairman Mao resolutely said: We must make up our minds to engage in cutting-edge technology, and Khrushchev will not give us cutting-edge technology, which is excellent, and if it is given, this account will be very difficult to repay!
On October 16, 1964, the first atomic bomb of New China was born in Lop Nur and the rapid progress of the development and production of the mainland atomic bomb was not only unexpected by the Soviet Union, but also shocked the world's major powers, including the United States.
Only three years later, on June 17, 1967, New China successfully exploded its first hydrogen bomb, and the era of imperialism's nuclear blackmail against China at every turn is gone!
Second, since the abolition of martial arts, Ukraine has handed over nuclear weapons to others
On December 25, 1991, the Soviet Union was declared decommissioned.
As a major member of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited nearly 1,400 nuclear warheads from the Soviet Union, including 176 intercontinental missile warheads, making it the third-largest nuclear-weapon state at the time after Russia and the United States.
The more than 170 nuclear weapons silos built in Ukraine during the Soviet period were designed entirely for the world war, the American nuclear bomb silos can withstand 175 kg per square centimeter, and the Ukrainian nuclear bomb silos can withstand 365 kg per square centimeter!
This makes both Russia and NATO feel very nervous: Russia certainly does not want a new nuclear power on its doorstep, even if Ukraine will not target nuclear weapons at itself, but the nuclear weapons that join it are not well kept, and it is difficult to have another nuclear accident like Chernobyl.
As the West, of course, it was even more difficult to sleep, because the vast majority of nuclear weapons in Ukraine at that time were aimed at large cities in Western Europe, because the Ukrainian evidence was not stable, and if any second son of a nuclear bomb was launched into Europe, perhaps World War III would break out.
As a result, russia and NATO, two rivals, reached an unprecedented agreement on Ukraine's nuclear weapons: all of Ukraine's nuclear weapons must be destroyed.
Russia first found Ukraine: anyway, the lockbox for nuclear weapons is here, and the nuclear warheads are useless to leave in your place, and they consume a lot of maintenance costs every year, so it is better to give it to me.
On December 21, 1991, Russia signed the Agreement on Joint Monitoring Measures over Nuclear Weapons with Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, stipulating that Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan would ship tactical nuclear weapons to Russia for destruction by July 1, 1992.
Then the Americans came to the door again: Don't you have those strategic missiles left? You can sell me the enriched uranium from the nuclear warhead, and I'll give you a financial aid.
Four countries sign the Budapest Memorandum
After more than two years of haggling, on December 5, 1994, Ukraine signed the Budapest Memorandum with Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom, in which Ukraine agreed to destroy all nuclear weapons in its territory.
The document also stipulates that after Ukraine abandons nuclear weapons, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom will act as guarantors to guarantee Ukraine's independence, sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, and will not interfere in Ukraine's internal affairs.
Subsequently, Ukraine handed over part of the nuclear warhead to Russia, and dismantled another part of the nuclear warhead, in which the enriched uranium was acquired by the United States, and as compensation, the United States also provided Ukraine with $330 million in economic assistance and $370 million in other assistance.
After the Budapest Memorandum was signed, U.S. senators in Washington rushed to Ukraine, pressing the detonation button of the nuclear bomb silo with their own hands, and watching the sword of Damocles hanging above their heads for decades turn into ruins.
On 1 June 1996, Ukraine destroyed all nuclear weapons and means of delivery in its territory, and by October 2001, Ukraine had dismantled the last of its underground missile depots, making it a completely non-nuclear State.
Ukraine is the first and should be the first country in history to surrender all of its nuclear weapons to people or simply destroy them on the spot at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Thirteen years after Ukraine had been fully disarmed, the Crimean crisis erupted and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, formerly part of Ukraine, was incorporated into the Russian Federation.
Third, New China insists on building its own national defense industry on its own
By the early 1960s, the new Chinese national defense industry system had been gradually improved, with more than 100 large and medium-sized enterprises, more than 20 independent scientific research and design institutions, a total of 60,000 metal cutting machine tools, more than 700,000 employees, including 33,000 technical personnel.
By this time, New China had its own capabilities to produce and maintain artillery, tanks, jets, surface-to-surface missiles, frigates, and submarines.
At the beginning of 1964, the state began to brew the "Third Five-Year Plan" construction plan, and the three departments of agriculture, finance, and industry and communications each organized a long-term planning meeting, and determined a guiding ideology of the "Third Five-Year Plan" of "eating and wearing first, basic industry second, and national defense third".
Chairman Mao thought higher and farther about this issue: The overall pattern of the US-Soviet struggle for hegemony has not changed, the "Cuban Missile Crisis" of 1962 is still fresh in people's minds, and the strategic threat of the United States to New China has not been lifted.
Since April 1961, the United States has intensified its intervention in the Vietnam War, and although the North Vietnamese army has won successive victories, U.S. imperialism must not be willing to lose, and the Vietnam War may be further escalated.
At the Central Work Conference in June, he told the comrades of the State Planning Commission: Our coastal provinces should set up grenade factories, explosives factories, and military factories. I've been talking about it for a few years, but I haven't started it. Every province has a first, second and third line! The deployment of the military industry should also be considered, and it is not enough to only carry out large ones. It is necessary to build a third-line base.
China's defense industry has accelerated its three-line layout
Sure enough, in August 1964, shortly after the implementation of the "Third Five-Year Plan", the United States rapidly expanded the war of aggression against Vietnam under the pretext of the "Beibu Gulf Incident", sending hundreds of thousands of troops into southern Vietnam and bombing northern Vietnam, and the strategic pressure on southern China suddenly increased.
To this end, since 1965, the state has vigorously built national defense industrial bases in the southwest and northwest third lines to improve the survival probability of the major defense industries after the first round of the enemy's attack, especially after the nuclear strike.
The deployment of the third-line national defense industry is roughly as follows: the conventional weapons industry base is centered on Chongqing, the aviation industry base is centered on Chengdu, and the shipbuilding industrial base is centered on Chongqing to Wanxian in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River;
In addition, industrial bases such as the aerospace industry, aviation industry, conventional weapons, and electronic and optical instruments have been planned in the northwest region, and the construction of third-line factories in the nuclear industry has been accelerated, which has fundamentally improved the layout of the national defense industry in New China.
The land reactor of the first nuclear submarine in New China was also secretly built and tested in the "909 base" in the southwest.
For the development of nuclear submarines, Chairman Mao of course also thought of asking the Soviet Union for help, but the Soviet side only left a sentence: "Nuclear submarine technology is too complicated, with your technology can not be done, spend too much money, you should not do it." ”
This further prompted Chairman Mao to make up his mind: "Nuclear submarines must be built in ten thousand years!" ”
With the full support of Marshal Nie Rongzhen, who presided over the work of the National Defense Work Commission, the "four chief divisions" of Huang Xuhua, Peng Shilu, Huang Weilu, and Zhao Yuankai, and the hard work of tens of millions of new Chinese scientific research workers, workers, and soldiers, on December 26, 1970, the first nuclear submarine of New China was successfully launched.
More than half a year ago, on April 24, 1970, The first artificial satellite of New China, "Dongfanghong No. 1", was successfully launched at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.
That year, Sun Jiadong, who was the technical leader of the Dongfanghong-1 artificial satellite, was only 41 years old, and he made many major contributions to the defense industry of New China in the following half century.
The successful launch of sputnik means that New China already has the ability to build intercontinental missiles in theory.
In March 1965, the first intercontinental ballistic missile of New China, the Dongfeng No. 5, was officially established, and the ocean-going fleet "718 Fleet", which was responsible for long-distance tracking and salvage of missile data modules, was also formed in 1976 according to Chairman Mao's instructions.
After eight years of repeated testing and exploration, by the beginning of 1979, the "Dongfeng 5" had the conditions for launch, and on May 18, 1980, the first intercontinental ballistic missile on the mainland was successfully launched, with a range of more than 9,000 kilometers.
Dongfeng missile, spreading the truth
Since then, the world has begun to circulate a saying: "Dongfeng Express, the mission will be achieved."
In the 27 years from the founding of New China to the death of Chairman Mao, no matter how the situation at home and in the world has changed, we have not stopped for a moment in the pace of building a modern national defense cause.
Although the Soviet Union, the United States, and European countries have repeatedly stuck us and pressed us, through our wisdom and efforts, we have finally become the third country in the world with the global launch capability to launch nuclear weapons.
Since then, we have also understood a truth: it is impossible to step on the shoulders of giants, and the only way is to make ourselves giants!
Fourth, Ukraine itself has lame itself
Not only has nuclear weapons been eliminated, but Ukraine has also been completely obsessed with reducing its conventional arms.
The beginning of all this was the "strategic flicker" of the United States toward Ukraine: the Cold War was over, the two camps of the East and the West had all been incorporated into the "democratic state system", and large-scale wars were gone forever.
Ukraine naively thinks that it can enjoy the dividends of peace, with knives and guns in the warehouse and horses in the south. Since 1992, they have been massively dismantling their armed forces.
First, hundreds of T-80 main battle tanks, representing the highest level in the Soviet Union at the time, were sent to the "tank cemetery" in Kharkov, along with thousands of other tanks and armored vehicles, and gradually rotted into scrap iron.
The Tu-160 strategic bombers that could carry nuclear weapons, which were once talked about by domestic military fans, were all torn to pieces except for a few that were handed over to Russia to pay off their debts.
Figure 160 was dismantled and how many people sighed
Then, Ukraine sold the original carrier-based aircraft for aircraft carriers, including the T10-K prototype, and of course, the half-finished aircraft carrier Varyag.
Subsequently, Ukraine was also pleasantly surprised to find that Southeast Asian countries had a very high demand for land weapons, so the Ukrainian side sold a large number of infantry fighting vehicles and self-propelled howitzers to Burma, and sold a batch of T-84 tanks to Thailand.
From India to Yemen, from Angola to Côte d'Ivoire, Ukraine's weapons and equipment are simply sold to the world, and even active weapons such as Su-27 and S-300 missiles have been sold to the United States-led NATO.
From 2005 to 2014, Ukraine sold about 30,000 guns of all kinds, more than 800 tanks, 230 helicopters, 200 fighter jets and 1.8 million firearms.
The government was selling hard, the troops were secretly selling, and in November 2018, Ukrainian border enforcement seized 84 tank engines and 300 million rounds of ammunition that were about to be sold on the black market.
With the massive loss of weapons and equipment, the number of Ukrainian troops fell from 780,000 at the time of independence to 250,000, and desertions continued, from the Crimean crisis in 2014 to 2018, the Ukrainian army almost every year deserted 7,000 or 8,000 people.
The Ukrainian defense industry, which was once the pride of the entire Soviet Union, was also closed with nato's "guidance" to Ukraine after independence.
The Maleshev plant in the Kharkiv region, which once produced T-80 tanks in large quantities, produced only 1 tank from 2009 to 2019, and the Antonov Design Bureau, which specializes in designing large transport aircraft and bombers, switched to developing passenger aircraft, and the shipyards in the Black Sea could not even receive orders for ships of more than 10,000 tons.
Plummeting salaries and despair of the country's defense industry have led to a massive loss of Ukrainian military technicians abroad, many of whom have moved to China with their families.
There is no doubt that Ukraine itself destroyed the defence industry, which is the backbone of the state, the second fatal mistake since independence, after abandoning nuclear weapons.
Kharkiv Tank Cemetery
Fifth, we must never pin our hopes for national security and reunification on others!
In mid-1958, New China and the Soviet Union disagreed over the establishment of a long-wave radio station (equivalent to a base covering several square kilometers) and a combined fleet.
In fact, since the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chairman Mao's attitude has been very clear, that is, the national security and reunification of new China can never be accomplished through foreign support or armed protection.
Even without Soviet support for key technologies for nuclear submarines and atomic bombs, China would not allow foreign countries to lease their land to garrison troops or dictate to China's defense.
Subsequently, the 8.23 shelling of Kinmen by the Soviet side, which was unknown in advance, marked that New China would absolutely not be controlled by foreign countries on issues involving national unity and sovereignty, and there was no room for negotiation.
Beginning in the late 1960s, China and the Soviet Union drifted apart and even border tensions grew.
Seeing the tension in Sino-Soviet relations, the United States seized the opportunity to take the initiative to contact New China in the early 1970s, beginning a process of normalization of relations between the two countries.
In February 1972, US President Richard Nixon visited China and held talks with Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou, after which the two countries jointly issued the Shanghai Joint Communiqué adhering to the "one China" principle.
Affected by the warming of Sino-US relations, in 1972 alone, China established diplomatic relations with Japan, Britain, the Federal Republic of Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand and other Western countries.
As the door of new China's contacts with the West slowly opened, the international environment facing China was greatly improved, which also made the Soviet side begin to reassess the cost of fighting with New China.
However, the United States did miscalculate, and New China's diplomatic strategy was neither the so-called "united United States to resist the Soviet Union" nor the "united Soviet Union against the United States," but was constantly adjusted according to China's national needs.
Nixon's successor, Ford, was under pressure at home and did not have the courage to go out of the process of establishing diplomatic relations, and Chairman Mao implicitly pointed out that the Americans were "firing empty guns" when he met with him in late 1975.
Since the United States is not in a hurry, China is even less anxious.
Ford visits China
The relations between China, the United States, and the Soviet Union, and even between China and the United States and Russia in the future, were dynamically balanced as each other's strengths diminished.
Of course, the successive leaders of Ukraine after independence are far from the wisdom and boldness of the first generation of leaders of New China.
Ukraine's ultimate goal is to join the European Union and enjoy the opening up and preferential policies of the EU market, so as to improve the domestic economy and the people's livelihood.
But the conditions for joining the EU were complex and demanding, so Ukraine retreated to the second place and sought to join NATO, whose main members were EU countries.
Listen to the West, destroy its own nuclear bomb silos and intercontinental missiles, this is the name of Ukraine to NATO, in their logic, since Turkey, whose territory is mainly located in Asia, can join NATO, why can't Ukraine?
After the Budapest Agreement was already in jeopardy, Ukraine began to move closer to NATO desperately, hoping that NATO's military forces would be able to hold up a new umbrella for themselves.
That's because they found that Ukraine, without nuclear weapons and so much weakened by conventional weapons, was like a tiger that had cut off its claws and had no ability to control the increasingly volatile situation at home.
Of course, Ukraine's quest to join NATO has clearly irritated Russia and further exacerbated the division of its own country, while it has since turned out that the so-called "great power asylum" can only turn itself into a pawn and a substitute for the dead.
The lessons of history prove that all practices of inviting foreign forces to ensure the security and reunification of our own countries will ultimately go bankrupt, and that we can only rely on ourselves if we want to achieve national prosperity, strength, peace and reunification.
The great men of Chairman Mao's generation led the Chinese to work hard for 27 years and left us an independent, strong, and developed China that did not have to look at other people's faces, did not have to listen to other people's orders, and did not have to ally with others.
Chinese people have stood up!
Even what happened in the world decades after his death continues to prove his foresight and foresight.