Sun, Oct 05, 2003 page3

• Washington told to sell fewer weapons

  RADICAL PROPOSAL? The former head of Russia's military missile-strategy team says Washington should cut arms-sales to decrease tensions between China and Taiwan

  • By Charles Snyder / STAFF REPORTER IN WASHINGTON
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  A senior Russian military strategist has proposed that Russia and the US reach an agreement to mutually reduce arms sales to China and Taiwan to help reduce tensions in the Taiwan Strait and, by implication, in East Asia.

  Victor Esin, a retired three-star general and former head of Russia's Strategic Missile Forces, made the suggestion in a conference in Washington on how Washington and Moscow can cooperate in seeking security in Asia.

  "We could really reduce tension in the Strait if Russia and the United States could reach an understanding and could agree that we should reduce our sales of weapons to China and to Taiwan if we do it in a parallel way," Esin, who is now a top official of Moscow's Academy for Security, Defense, Law and Order Studies, said at a conference of the Association on Third World Affairs, a Russia-oriented think tank, on Thursday.

  However, he noted such a plan is not in the works. "Unfortunately, there is no such understanding between Russia and the US today and, as far as I know, this issues is not even discussed," he said.

  Still,"if we can make a breakthrough in this area, then we can hope to limit the transfer of military technology to China and Taiwan and to reduce tension," he said.

  Short of such an agreement, Russia is likely to continue to be China's main arms supplier, Esin said. He noted that Russia has arms sales agreements with China and several years ago signed a treaty with China on the issue.

  "Unfortunately, we don't have such a treaty with the United States," he said.

  As a result, Russia has a legally binding commitment to provide military and technological aid to China, he said.

  Esin's proposal is reminiscent of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin's (江澤民) suggestion to US President George W. Bush at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas last October that China would be willing to reduce its ballistic missile buildup across the Strait from Taiwan if the US would curb its arms sales to Taiwan. Washington firmly rejected that proposal.

  According to the Pentagon, China remains "highly reliant" on Russian arms. In a report to Congress this past July on China's military power and plans, the Pentagon said: "China hopes to fill short-term gaps in capabilities by significantly expanding its procurement of Russian weapon systems and technical assistance over the next several years."

  The report cited China's recent arms purchases from Russia including additional Su-30MMK fighter aircraft, the AA-12 Adder active-radar guided air-to-air missile, and is looking to acquire A-50 Mainstay AWACS aircraft from Russia.

  On the naval side, the Pentagon said the first two Sovremennyy-class guided missile destroyers are fully integrated into China's naval operations and Beijing has signed an agreement for two more such destroyers.

  And the Pentagon said Beijing continues to acquire added advanced Russian weapon systems. It has already bought four Russian Kilo SS, one of the quietest diesel-electric submarines in the world, and has a contract for eight new Kilos with more sophisticated weaponry.

  For greater air power, China has bought SA-N-7 naval surface-to-air missiles, providing China with the most capable medium-range surface-to-air defense system for the near term. Over the next 10 years, China is likely to acquire from Russia a long-range naval missile equivalent to the shore-based SA-10/20, the Pentagon report said.

  At the same Washington conference, Mikhail Nosov, the deputy director of Moscow's Institute of the United States and Canada, and a specialist in Asian affairs, said that China would not attack Taiwan unless the island's government declares independence.

  Calling the Taiwan Strait one of the "hottest spots in the world," Nosov said "I'm quite sure that until Taiwan will have proclaimed its independence, China won't use arms against Taiwan." But if Taiwan does declare independence, he said "it's possible that [China] will used their arms against Taiwan."

  Noting that Washington has had a policy of ambiguity over its possible response should China attack Taiwan in place for a long time, Nosov charged that Bush "violated this law for a while," an apparent reference to Bush's April 2001 pronouncement that he would do "whatever it takes" to thwart a Chinese invasion -- a stance, Nosov said, that "disappeared from the newspapers" after a while.
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