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Kim Il-sung (left) during a meeting with Mao Zedong (right) in 1954. A recent report reveals that Mao implicitly objected to the North pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

Former Chinese leader Mao Zedong expressed objections in the 1960s to North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons, a recent report says.

The news comes amid growing interest in Beijing’s response to North Korea’s recent fourth nuclear test.

According to a Jan. 12 report in Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun newspaper, Mao discussed China’s nuclear program with then-North Korean Premier Kim Il-sung during an Oct. 1964 visit by the latter, just after China’s first successful nuclear test.

“China has a large population, and it’s a big country. We need to consider face. That’s why we developed nuclear weapons,” Mao was quoted as telling Kim.

“Does Choson [North Korea] really need to go to that length?” he was reported as asking.

According to the newspaper, the story was confirmed from audio recordings of a Korean Workers’ Party official speaking at an internal talk following North Korea’s third nuclear test in Feb. 2013.

Mao was also reported as having summoned an official with the People’s Liberation Army in front of Kim and asking how much the nuclear test had cost. The official leaned in to whisper the answer, at which point Mao said, “It’s okay [to speak] in front of Comrade Kim Il-sung, go ahead and say it,” the report said.

The amount given by the official was US$2 billion, or nearly the same amount as the US$2.8 billion spent on the Tokyo Olympics around the same time, according to the report. The reference to such a massive cost for developing a nuclear program - one North Korea could not afford at the time - was interpreted as an indirect rejection of Pyongyang’s wish for cooperation.

Instead, North Korea turned to cooperation with the former Soviet Union to develop its nuclear program. The two countries established a nuclear technology education agreement in 1956, which served as the basis for the 1965 installation of a first research reactor, the IRT-2000, at Yongbyon.

North Korea joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in Dec. 1985, but later declared its withdrawal in March 1993 over issues surrounding nuclear inspections.

By Gil Yun-hyung, Tokyo correspondent

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]