section_path: Leadership of China/Military projects
section_name: Military projects
paragraph_text: Military projects
  
  United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower 's threats during the First Taiwan Strait Crisis to use nuclear weapons against military targets in Fujian province prompted Mao to begin China's nuclear program. Under Mao's Two Bombs, One Satellite program, China developed the atomic and hydrogen bombs in record time and launched a satellite a few years after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik.
  
  Project 523 is a 1967 military project to find antimalarial medications. It addressed malaria, an important threat in the Vietnam War. Zhou Enlai convinced Mao Zedong to start the mass project "to keep allies' troops combat-ready", as the meeting minutes put it. The one for investigating traditional Chinese medicine discovered and led to the development of a class of new antimalarial drugs called artemisinins.