Noting the emphasis on concluding a
commercial nuclear agreement in time for the summit,
the Far East Economic Review says that
"On the literally more explosive issue of China's
nuclear arsenal, however, the two sides have skirted
the issue." The magazine reports China is
defensive on issues of missile reductions, is engaged
in an ambitious program to upgrade its arsenal, and
makes great efforts to hide its strategic missiles
underground. Citing Britain's Office of Naval
Intelligence, the Review says China's
JL-2 ballistic missile, when deployed on its nuclear
submarines in the next decade, "would for the
first time allow Chinese subs to target parts of the
U.S. from areas located near the Chinese coast."
A top Pentagon official responsible
for China says the U.S. wants to both deter and engage
the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Randall Schriver,
senior country director for the PRC, Hong Kong, Taiwan
and Mongolia, says U.S. military goals include
obtaining a better understanding of the PLA's
modernization efforts and reaching operating
agreements and confidence building measures such as
the Military Maritime safety agreement the
administration hopes to announce at the summit. Other
agreements such as one covering Defense Department
assistance for PRC natural disasters and humanitarian
aid are pending but may not be signed.
Saying the Pentagon views the summit
as an important event but only in the context of a
very long-term engagement strategy, Schriver outlines
the Defense Department's policy as being aimed at
articulating U.S. intentions and capabilities in order
to deter the PLA "in the event of the
relationship going in the direction no one
wants." Defense Secretary Cohen is expected to
press further on transparency issues when he visits
Beijing next month.
The Associated Press reports that the
Clinton administration "says it is not trying to
constrain China's military growth, and it sees no
reason to regard the Chinese as a security
threat." [Editor's note: Beijing has turned down
requests by the Bush and Clinton administrations to
de-target the United States.]
Noting that Chinese President Jiang
Zemin first made his mark by turning sharply against
pro-democracy demonstrators and publications as mayor
of Shanghai, the New York Times
editorializes, "Deng and other senior leaders
then summoned him to Beijing to become Communist Party
leader and preside over a relentless crackdown on
advocates of greater democracy. He succeeded so
thoroughly that the State Department this year
concluded that open dissent in China had been
crushed."
October 24
The Jiang-Clinton summit is "an
elaborate exercise in propaganda . . . intended to
serve both to ratify China's post-Tiananmen diplomatic
rehabilitation and to solidify Jiang's domestic
political status," writes the National Journal's
Mike Kelly in the Washington Post. On
nuclear matters with Beijing, Kelly says, "a
responsible president must not attempt to certify what
he cannot know to be so, a responsible Congress must
stop, by a veto-proof two-thirds majority, a president
who puts the interest of Beijing and Westinghouse
ahead of national security. Let's verify before we
trust."
