Editing Science and technology in China (section)

==== History of China's hydrogen bomb ====
China became a nuclear power in the 1960s.<ref name=":152" />{{Rp|page=356}} China successfully tested a [[hydrogen bomb]] on June 17, 1967, at Lop Nur Nuclear Weapon Test Base, in Malan, Xinjiang (also known as "Test No. 6"). China became the fourth country to have successfully developed a [[thermonuclear weapon]] after the [[United States]], [[Soviet Union]] and the [[United Kingdom]]. The device was dropped from a [[Xian H-6|Hong-6]] (Chinese manufactured [[Tu-16]]) and was parachute-retarded for an airburst at 2960 meters. The bomb was a three-stage device with a boosted [[Uranium-235|U-235]] primary and [[Uranium-238|U-238]] pusher. The [[Nuclear weapon yield|yield]] was 3.3 [[TNT equivalent|megatons]].

It was a fully functional, full-scale, three-stage [[hydrogen bomb]], tested 32 months after China had made its first fission device. China thus produced the shortest fission-to-fusion development known in history. China had received extensive technical help from the Soviet Union to jump-start their nuclear program, but by 1960, the rift between the Soviet Union and China had become so great that the Soviet Union ceased all assistance to China.<sup>[[Test No. 6|[1]]]</sup> Thus, the Number 6 test was indeed an independent endeavor, after the induced military and economic sanctions enacted by the superpowers at the time, the United States and the Soviet Union.

China's H-bomb was different from the traditional [[History of the Teller–Ulam design|Teller-Ulam configuration]]. As an advantage, it was completed without the calculations needed from supercomputers, which would consume a lot of time. To shrink the size of the weapon, the reflectors were made parabolic with the solid fusion fuel located at the foci. It is also known as Yu Min Design (or Yu-[[Deng Jiaxian|Deng]] Design) as Yu Min made major contributions including the solutions to a series of fundamental and critical theoretical problems of nuclear weapons, which led to breakthrough of the unique hydrogen bomb.

The goal of China was to produce a thermonuclear device of at least a megaton in yield that could be dropped by an aircraft or carried by a ballistic missile. Several explosions to test thermonuclear weapon designs, characteristics and yield boosting preceded the thermonuclear test.<sup>[[Test No. 6|[1]]]</sup>