[tanzam75]

Whatever the original reasons for China's atomic bomb program, they became completely irrelevant after relations with the Soviet Union deteriorated.

By 1964, when the first Chinese atomic bomb was tested, China was barely on speaking terms with the Soviet Union. By 1969, China and the Soviet Union were on the brink of war. The Soviets tripled their forces in the Far East during the 1960s, deploying fully one-quarter of the Soviet military along the Chinese border. (They did this without drawing down their forces in Europe, which placed quite a strain on the Soviet economy.)

After Nixon visited China in 1972, Henry Kissinger even gave security briefings to Chinese generals, supplying them with satellite imagery and the location of Soviet forces.