Thu, Sep 06, 2001 page1

• US clarifies stand on China missiles

  STRATEGY The Bush administration says it won't `acquiesce' to China's nuclear missile development in exchange for support on a US-planned defense shield

  • NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
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  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."
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