Environmental Effects

On the question of the environmental effects of nuclear testing, which appear to worry the present anti-Chinese lobby far more than the quite concrete destruction being daily carried by conventional means, China has already run across New Zealand's timorous aspirations as a watchdog. At the United Nations Conference on the Environment China voted against a New Zealand resolution condemning nuclear tests. How heartless, how irresponsible! But where was New Zealand when China immediately before submitted a resolution calling for destruction of all nuclear and biochemical weapons, to be first implemented by an agreement by all powers never to use the weapons they had. Of course, the Chinese motion was never passed.

China has continually reiterated that it desires neither testing grounds nor any nuclear or military bases outside her own borders — a position most recently outlined by Foreign Minister Chi Peng-fei in November 1972 when signing the Pact for a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone in Latin America.

All of these positive initiatives and positions are ignored by those who, in opposing the French Tests, see themselves in a new world-reformist role.