In 1960, China was "forced" to climb Mount Qomolangma
Originally published in 27th April 2012
Context: On this day (May 25th) 63 years ago (1960) the Chinese side ascended to the top of Sagarmatha. This article appeared on Beijing Times in 2012 and provides that motivation behind the summit was to prove Nepali side of its ownership of Sagarmatha.
Wang Fuzhou: 74 years old, a native of Xihua, Henan, a famous mountaineer, and a former party secretary of the Chinese Mountaineering Team. Lives in Beijing now.
Diplomatic Struggle "Forced to Mount Qomolangma"
Wang Fuzhou recalled that the idea of ​​climbing Qomolangma was proposed by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. At that time, the Soviet Union was relatively well developed in mountaineering, but they had no peaks over 8,000 meters. In view of the special friendly neighborly relationship between China and the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union proposed that the two countries form a team to climb Mount Qomolangma.
Mount Qomolangma is located on the border between China and Nepal. There was a dispute between China and Nepal at the time regarding the ownership of Mount Qomolangma. During the demarcation negotiations, the Chinese side proposed to draw the border line at the peak of Mount Qomolangma, but the Nepali side believed that Mount Qomolangma is entirely within Nepali territory and has nothing to do with China.
Wang Fuzhou said that Qomolangma means "Goddess Mother of the World" in Tibetan. In Nepal, people call her "Sagarmatha", while Westerners call it "Everest". The Chinese side suggested to give this mountain a unified name called "Friendship Peak", but the Nepali side refused to accept it: "You Chinese have never been up there, so how can you say it belongs to you?"
 On May 29, 1953, the 39-year-old Nepali guide Tenzing Norgay and New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary climbed Mount Qomolangma from the south slope, becoming the first team in history to successfully reach the summit. It was this initiative of Tenzing Norgay that became an important weight for the Nepali side in the negotiations.
Moreover, Nepal was a vassal country of India at that time, and the Indians once clamored that the Chinese had never climbed Mount Qomolangma, and Mount Qomolangma could not be regarded as China's territory at all. It is against this backdrop that China climbing Mount Qomolangma suddenly became a solemn mission.
Under such circumstances, the Chinese can be described as "forced to climb Mount Qomolangma."
 According to the agreement between China and the Soviet Union, the two countries selected members to train the team in 1958 and formally climbed in 1959. Wang Fuzhou, who just graduated from Beijing Institute of Geology, was successfully selected through various assessments.
Unexpected change of events, the Soviets retreated.
   After a period of intensive training in Xiangshan, Wang Fuzhou and his teammates went to the Soviet Union for alpine training. The preparations were carried out step by step, but at this moment, unexpected changes took place in the domestic and foreign situation.
Since the late 1950s, Sino-Soviet relations have gradually broken down. In July 1960, the Soviet government issued an order that all Soviet experts who were in China at that time had to retreat back overnight.
The difficulty in terms of personnel was easier to handle, and the greater difficulty lay in the lack of materials.
According to the original agreement, all mountain materials, equipment and food were provided by the Soviet side. After the Soviet side withdrew, these materials could only be purchased in Western Europe.
Due to the blockade imposed by Europe and the United States on China, it was only possible to exchange foreign exchange from the Hong Kong market at that time, and then go to Switzerland, France, Italy and other countries to purchase materials and equipment.
   Three marches, two sacrifices
   In March 1960, a team of more than 200 people gathered at the base camp of Mount Qomolangma, including more than 90 mountaineers.
According to the method taught by the Soviet Union, the mountaineering team planned to gradually adapt step by step and complete the summit in four marches.
   For the first march, the mountaineering team advanced to a height of 6,400 meters, established three alpine camps along the way, and transported materials and equipment to 6,400 meters. After completing the scheduled tasks, the team members withdrew to the base camp to rest. The process of adaptive marching is also a process of examining the physical fitness and skills of the team members.
   In the second march, the mountaineering team opened up the "climbing road" from the bottom of the North Col to the top, and established a camp at 7007 meters. Unfortunately, Wang Ji, a young teacher from Lanzhou University, died in this operation due to altitude sickness.
According to the plan, the basic task of the third march was to scout the route to the summit of the assault and establish an assault camp. If the conditions are ripe, we will move directly to the summit.
   However, the weather changed suddenly during the operation. Although three team members established an assault camp at 8,500 meters, the operation suffered heavy losses. Guo Ziqing, a teacher at Peking University, died due to altitude sickness. More than 50 people in the team were frostbitten to varying degrees, including the captain Shi Zhanchun. Many of the main climbers had to quit with regret.
   Facing this mountaineering team that had been suffering in the ice and snow for more than two months, Han Fudong, who was the commander in chief at the time, had considered climbing again the next year, but in the end they decided to reorganize the team and fight again!
Wang Fuzhou, who was responsible for the transportation task in the previous operations, was selected into the fourth marching assault team at this time. The team leader was Xu Jing, the deputy captain of the mountaineering team, and the team also included Liu Lianman and Gongbu.
   In order to express their determination to win, the climbers who had no way out wrote down their wills. Wang Fuzhou still clearly remembers that the wills were not like wills. Apart from expressing his determination, he hardly said a word to his family and friends. "At that time, I had only one thought, climb to the top!"
   Resigned in danger, sprint to the top
The fourth march began on May 17. Six days later, four commandos from Xu Jing, Wang Fuzhou, Liu Lianman and Kampot arrived at the 8,500-meter assault camp, and Qu Yinhua also led the transport team to arrive later.
At around 9:00 am on May 24, four commandos got out of the tent and headed for the summit. Just after walking tens of meters away, Xu Jing suddenly fell down twice.
   There was no time to hesitate, so Qu Yinhua, a transport team member, could only be asked to replace Xu Jing to participate in the summit rush, while Wang Fuzhou, as the pre-determined first agent, was appointed as the leader of the assault team when he was in danger.
At around 12:00 noon, four people came to the "second step", which is a natural barrier about 30 meters high, with an average slope of about 80 degrees.
They found that there was a crack in the rock on the lower half of the "second step", which could allow one person to pass through. After climbing up from the middle of the crack, there was a section of cliff about 6 meters high, almost straight up and down, and there was nowhere to get off.
Liu Lianman, who was born a firefighter, had the strongest climbing ability. He tried to climb several times but failed.
Wang Fuzhou said that in the end Liu Lianman came up with a way to build a human ladder. With the help of Liu Lianman's lift, Qu Yinhua smashed two ice picks into the rock, put on the safety rope, and used the safety rope to climb to the top of the cliff first. The other 3 people followed suit and successfully broke through the "second step".
The difficulty of the "second step" far exceeded their previous estimates. They originally planned to spend 9 hours climbing to the top, but it took more than 5 hours to pass the "second step". Moreover, Liu Lianman was exhausted here and unable to move on. At an altitude of 8,700 meters, Wang Fuzhou, Qu Yinhua and Gongbu placed Liu Lianman next to a large rock sheltered from the wind and continued towards the summit. It was getting late at this time, and the three decided to move forward in the dark. According to the weather forecast, this round of good weather would end the next day. They had to climb to the summit and descend before the snowstorm came, and they had not even brought camping equipment.
By the faint light of the stars and the snow, the final sprint was so hard that it was impossible to find a course but they could only feel their way up by hand. They had not eaten for a long time, and their physical strength had declined greatly. In some places, they had to climb inch by inch. It took more than 10 hours to climb more than 100 meters from 8,700 meters to the summit.
The summit time was at 4:20 am on May 25th. Looking around, there was no way to go except the night sky and the shining stars, and they were convinced that they had completed this arduous mission.
(Excerpt from "Beijing Times" by Ou Qinping)
**The link to the original article can be accessed here **
**Pictures can be accessed here **
".....Soviet government issued an order that all Soviet experts who were in China at that time had to retreat back to China overnight." Did you mean "retreat back to the Soviet Union overnight"?