Documents / FOIA release
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.
“Cooper”3 pages
Approved for Release: 2018/01/so TCS 4425/as —1=oP—sEc|re"r (b 3 steels, and spring steels. They now have corrosion- resistant stainless steels needed for fertilizer plants, and are acquiring applied research experience use- ful in specialty steel manufacturing. By 1970, China should be able to produce most varieties of specialty steels. The major problem which the Chinese have in specialty steel technology is the poor control of chemical composition and homo- geneity. Little is known of the Chinese ability to produce such metals as titanium, beryllium, and molybdenum. China’s problems with steel proc- essing suggest, however, that at present it would have difiiculty in producing and fabricating these metals on an industrial scale since a more complex technology is required. 113. Powder metallurgy techniques are not yet well developed in China, and apparently little re- search is being undertaken in this field. Other modern metallurgical techniques, such as vacuum metallurgy, zone-refining, and explosive forming are being studied, though most metallurgical re- search efforts are devoted to improving more con- ventional techniques. 114. China probably has been engaged in re- search on the metallurgical application of radio- isotopes. 115. Technological problems concerning the beneficiation of ores for the production of the com- mon nonferrous metals, such as copper, aluminum, tin, lead, and zinc, are still of concern to the Chi- nese. In addition, Chinese metallurgists are con- tinuing their efforts to develop processes for the extraction of other nonferrous metals, such as zir- conium, hafnium, uranium, and tantalum from their ores. A degree of success in these efforts is indi- cated, but they are still years behind the West and are not expected to catch up until well beyond 1970. 116. The application of research findings to full- scale industrial fabrication of metals is still a prob- lem in China. Chinese difficulties in heat treat- ment primarily concern the control of furnace atmospheres, furnace automation and mechanization techniques, and quality control procedures. The welding of steel continues to be a problem and is a subject of much applied research throughout China. 117. A limited amount of basic physical metal- lurgy research is under way in China. Studies of internal friction in metals, being conducted at the Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences, are out- standing. Other routine studies are being made of metal whiskers, dislocations, creep, and magnetic properties. ' 118. The most important research institutes in the field of metallurgy are the Institute of Chemi- cal Engineering and Metallurgy, Institute of Metal- lurgy and Ceramics, Institute of Metals, all under the Academy of Sciences, and the Research Institute of Nonferrous Metals, under the Ministry of Metal- lurgical Industry. The Shih-ching-shan Steel Plant in Peiping is devoted to" investigations of newer steel making processes and to the improvement of the conventional processes in use in China. 5. Basic Electronics 119. While trying to achieve a capability in theoretical research, the Chinese are emphasizing practical research and development for their im- mediate production needs. In particular, they are concerned with the development of their manu- facturing facilities so that they can produce their own telecommunications equipments and adapt foreign equipment to their manufacturing capabili- ties. In spite of Sino-Soviet ideological differences, China continues to cooperate, at least to an extent, with other Communist countries in research on equipment tropicalization. China almost certainly will have a very formidable research capability within a few years after the period of this estimate. 120. In noncommunications electronic equip- ment production and deployment for military use, the Chinese already have demonstrated an increas- ing ability to develop their own equipment and to adapt foreign equipment to their manufacturing capabilities. Their aim undoubtedly is to develop a completely self-suflicient industry for the produc- tion of this equipment, though at present they will take whatever help becomes available. 121. To date, Chinese leaders have emhasized the engineering development aspects of electronics research, concerning themselves with adapting Soviet Bloc, Western, and Iapanese devices, equip-. ment, and systems in order to meet requirements (b)(3) 26 A (D3 Approved for Release: 2018/01/30 C00659420 _g -We
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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.