The George W. Bush administration issued a new statement on Tuesday about how it views the buildup of Chinese nuclear forces, declaring that it would not "seek to overcome China's opposition" to President Bush's missile defense plan by dropping any objections to the modernization of China's nuclear forces.
In the statement, issued by Bush's press secretary, Ari Fleischer, the White House also said it would not "acquiesce" in the resumption of nuclear testing by China.
The statement was prompted by an article on Sunday in The New York Times, quoting senior administration officials who said they would not object to China's nuclear modernization. China will add intercontinental missiles to its modest fleet of 20 to 24 such weapons no matter what the US tells China, the administration concluded.
The article quoted officials and outside analysts as saying that once China has more missiles in its arsenal, it should be less concerned about Bush's missile defense system -- because China would have a sufficient number of missiles to overwhelm any American missile defense now being contemplated.
The article prompted criticism of the administration's position by Democrats, and some Republicans, who said they worried that China would interpret it as a go-ahead to build more nuclear weapons.
In response, White House officials, led by Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser, said that the administration was recognizing strategic reality, not offering China any kind of a deal in which American approval of the buildup would be traded for Chinese approval of a missile defense plan.
The statement -- issued late Tuesday afternoon, officials said -- was intended to reinforce that point. "The United States will not seek to overcome China's opposition to missile defense by telling the Chinese that we do not object to an expansion of their nuclear ballistic missile force," the statement said.
"Nor will we acquiesce in any resumption of nuclear testing by China. We are respecting the nuclear testing moratorium and all other nations should as well."
Speaking on background, however, several administration officials have repeated in recent days that China may decide it needs to test its new weapons to assure their safety and reliability.
At the heart of the administration's revised statement appears to be a distinction between what Bush's advisers believe China will do and what it will tell them to do.
The article on Sunday quoted one of Bush's senior advisers as saying "We know the Chinese will enhance their nuclear capability anyway, and we are going to say to them, `We're not going to tell you not to do it."'
But on Tuesday, White House officials said they also do not plan to tell China to go ahead with the modernization.
"It's not a conversation likely to take place," one senior official said. "We don't have a script that says `You may proceed.'"
The debate over how to handle China's military modernization comes in advance of President Bush's planned trip to Shanghai and Beijing next month.
He will be explaining his missile defense plans to the Chinese for the first time there, and laying out his position about China's military expansion.
Rice said Tuesday evening that she hoped to tell the Chinese not to use the missile defense program as an excuse to add to their own arsenal.
"Missile defense is not the cause of this modernization," she said in a telephone conversation. "Regrettably, even if missile defense was not a factor, the Chinese expansion would likely continue. We will of course account for it in our military planning."
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2