UN General Assembly
1964

133. Nevertheless, amidst these favourable prospects, we were once again startled — by a clap of thunder: the nuclear explosion carried out by continental China. It is an auspicious sign when a nation struggling against the backwardness of centuries achieves the scientific advance implicit in the harnessing of atomic energy. An advance, indeed, but not a triumph, for it grieves us that such a great effort should not be directed towards liberation or wellbeing but reflects a stubborn and desperate ambition to achieve supremacy by becoming one of the conclave of countries which hold the atomic monopoly. 134. In continental China we are now confronted with a problem of new dimensions. This nation, the most populous on earth, seems to be beyond the reach of moral law because it is outside the community of nations and has a free hand to act as it pleases, without being subject to the principles and commitments that restrict the individual action of other States.