Documents / FOIA release

(EST Pub Date) Science and Technology in Communist CHINA Through 1970

Central Intelligence Agency · 1965-06-01 · 95 pages · text from the file's own layer

This Central Intelligence Agency release is a Scientific Intelligence Study, TCS No. 4425/65. The Scientific Intelligence Committee prepared it with other intelligence community committees and approved it on 3 June 1965. It assesses Communist China's capabilities in science and technology through 1970, with particular attention to military and industrial programs. The study concludes that China will lag far behind advanced nations. The exceptions are a few priority areas such as nuclear weapons, missiles and air defense. It contains no discussion of UFOs.

Approved for Release: 2018/01/30 C00659420
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SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN
COMMUNIST CHINA THROUGH I970
PROBLEM
To assess Chinese Communist capabilities in science and tech-
nology through 1970, particularly in relation to military and industrial
programs.
CONCLUSIONS
l. China will continue to lag far behind the more
advanced nations of the world in the major areas of
science and technology over the next 5 years. The
country's ambitious research and development pro-
grams will continue to be retarded by major weak-
nesses, and accomplishments, in general, will be
limited to the gradual improvement of a generally
backward technology. This does not preclude sig-
nificant successes in a few priority areas, such as
in the advanced weapons field. Indeed, by shrewd
allocation of scarce human resources and with the
benefit of past Soviet aid, the Chinese have been
able to explode nuclear devices, undertake a diver-
sified missile program, modernize their air defense
system considerably, and embark on other military
R&D programs of some significance.
2. The major shortage of research and develop-
ment resources seriously limits China's ability to
make significant progress except in selected mili-
tary research and development areas. Thus, de-
spite a body of about 850,000 living graduates in
the science and technology fields, there are only
enough competent scientists and sufficient research
materials to undertake a small portion of the host of
I I
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 95 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.