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China changing `status quo': US defense official

A senior US defense official has accused China of changing the "status quo" in the Taiwan Strait through its rapid buildup of a ballistic missile force aimed at Taiwan.

Richard Lawless, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia and the Pacific, said the US is holding intensive discussions with its allies in the region about the threat posed by the missiles, and that the Chinese buildup represents a threat to Washington's development of a missile defense program.

But in testimony before a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee on recent security developments in China, Lawless declined to go into details of the threat in open session.

He said a classified version of the recently issued Pentagon report on Chinese military capabilities, which discussed the Chinese threat to Taiwan, goes into much more detail on the issue.

Lawless became only the second Bush administration official to state that China had changed the "status quo" in the Strait as a result of the missile buildup, an arsenal that now amounts to more than 900 short-range missiles.

Lawless' predecessor, Peter Rodman, the then assistant defense secretary for international security affairs, had accused China of violating the "status quo" in March last year during a hearing of the US-China Economic and Security Commission, a congressionally established advisory panel.

The official US position is to oppose unilateral change to the "status quo," although US officials ordinarily use the phrase only after the Taiwanese government has acted in a manner perceived to be aggravating China.

In his testimony, Lawless said that the Pentagon had identified at least 10 varieties of ballistic missile that China had deployed or were under development, including the missiles targeting Taiwan "with a capability to threaten Taiwan's defense and disrupt the island's infrastructure."

Asked to elaborate by a committee member, Lawless described the missile buildup as "challenges that are being presented to our ballistic missile programs."

"We are having a lot of discussion within the region with our partners and allies about the threat that those missiles pose. I would suggest that this year's military power report [on China] discusses not only the threat vis-a-vis Taiwan and how we believe that it is changing the status quo and creating a new dynamic there; we also address the capabilities of the regional deployments that are being made," he said.

Much of Lawless' testimony was taken directly from the Pentagon's latest report on China's military, including the conclusion that its military buildup, in tandem with languishing defense spending in Taiwan, has tilted the military balance in the Strait in Beijing's favor.

"We continue to see China's military advances, particularly in continued deployments opposite Taiwan, as tilting the military balance in the mainland's favor," Lawless told the committee.
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