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."
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the southern coast of Mindanao in the Philippines at 7:38am today, prompting the US Tsunami Warning System to issue an alert for neighboring countries, including Taiwan. The system issued a purple alert indicating a "tsunami threat." The potential threat zone includes Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Yap and Palau. Philippine authorities were assessing the damage from the quake, with the office of civil defense seeking to verifying initial reports that 15 people had been killed and 129 injured in the region, mostly from falling debris. Arlene Hollero, disaster chief of Maasim town in the Philippines' Sarangani Province,
‘GRAY ZONE’ PRESSURE: Beijing’s activities are intended to create the deceitful impression that China has jurisdiction over the area around Taiwan, the CGA said Taiwan’s rights over its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone must not be violated by any country, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that it will not accept any unprovoked actions. The council issued the remarks in response to the China Coast Guard conducting maritime enforcement drills near eastern Taiwan and claiming to fully exercise China’s maritime administrative law enforcement authority. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) has been closely monitoring the situation and is taking concrete steps to defend the nation’s sovereignty and secure its waters, the council said. China has no sovereign rights over the waters off eastern
RESILIENCE: Taiwan plays a key role in semiconductors, energy, information infrastructure and advanced manufacturing, AIT Director Raymond Greene said Taiwan’s continued investment in deterrence and resilience remains vital, especially in uncrewed systems and other emerging technologies, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday. Greene made the remarks at the annual National Strategic Summit on Supply Chain Resilience held by the Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET), a government-backed think tank. As Taiwan last year became the US’ fourth-largest trading partner and supply chain security is becoming more important, cooperation in emerging technologies continues to deepen between the two countries, he said. The US is committed to accelerating innovation, building key infrastructure, strengthening cooperation
RIGHT DIRECTION: Taiwan’s efforts to prevent forced labor include a proposal to ‘fully prohibit’ employers from withholding workers’ documents, an official said Taiwan is to establish a mechanism to restrict imports of goods linked to forced labor, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, after the US proposed imposing additional tariffs on Taiwanese goods over labor concerns. “The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economic Affairs are to establish an interministerial review procedure,” Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “The government is to use the Foreign Trade Act [貿易法] as the legal basis to restrict imports of goods produced with forced labor” and bring its supply chain governance more in line with international standards on human rights, resilience
RSS