Fury over PLA official's nuclear threat

OUT OF BOUNDS: An MAC official said that regardless of whether the aggressive words represented official thought or just a personal view, they warranted scorn

By Shih Hsiu-chuan

STAFF REPORTER , WITH AGENCIES

"If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons."－ byZhu Chenghu, a major general in the PLA

Officials yesterday condemned a Chinese military official's remarks that China was prepared to use nuclear weapons against the US if Washington attacked his country in a military conflict over Taiwan.

According to the Financial Times, Zhu Chenghu, a Major General in the People's Liberation Army (PLA), said on Thursday that, "If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons."

Zhu had made the remarks during a reception for foreign journalists organized in part by the Chinese government, the newspaper reported.

A Mainland Affairs Council official responded strongly to Zhu's remarks yesterday.

"We severely condemn Zhu's statement," said Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Vice Chairman You Ying-lung at a press conference. "[Zhu] should offer an apology."

Zhu's statements, which seem to confirm some Taiwanese officials' worst suspicions about the PLA's hawkish leanings, are outside acceptable bounds of rhetoric in the international community, You said.

"After the two atomic bombs were dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the international community doesn't want to see the re-emergence of nuclear catastrophe in the world," You said.

"Zhu's statement is a serious challenge to civilized society," he said.

Ministry of National Defense Spokesman Liou Chih-chien also responded to the PLA official's comments, saying "the use of nuclear weapons is something that the international community will condemn."

Since its first atomic test in 1964, China's official doctrine has called for no first use of nuclear weapons.

But Zhu is not the first Chinese official to have referred to the possibility of using nuclear weapons in a military conflict over Taiwan.

Xiong Guangkai, now the PLA's deputy chief of general staff, once threatened to use nuclear weapons against the city of Los Angeles.

"Americans care more about Los Angeles than they do about Taiwan," Xiong told former US assistant defense secretary Chas Freeman in 1996 as a reminder that China's intercontinental missile force could target the US for siding with Taiwan in a cross-strait conflict.

While Zhu made his statement at an official briefing, he said that he was only expressing his own views, not that of the Chinese government, and added that he did not anticipate a conflict with Washington.

The Financial Times, however, described his threat to use nuclear weapons in a conflict over Taiwan as "the most specific by a senior Chinese official in nearly a decade."

You said the remarks were highly inappropriate, at the very least.

"It's doubtful that Zhu's statement represents his government's position," You said.

"If Zhu made his statement on behalf of the government, it was very serious. But if what he said was just his personal opinion, it was also inappropriate," You said.

US lawmaker calls ties with Beijing into question as officials sneer at nuke threat

By Mac William Bishop

STAFF REPORTER

US officials are incensed over what they see as threats by a senior Chinese military officer to use nuclear weapons against US cities.

In a letter sent to Chinese ambassador to the US Zhou Wenzhong, Republican Representative Tom Tancredo slammed Major General Zhu Chenghu for making the comments and demanded an immediate apology from the Chinese government.

"For a senior government official to exhibit such tremendous stupidity by making such a brazen threat is hardly characteristic of a modern nation," Tancredo said in the letter, released yesterday.

"The US decision to recognize Communist China in 1979 was predicated on the commitment of your [Zhou's] country to resolve its differences with Taiwan peacefully," Tancredo wrote.

"If China continues to walk down this destructive path, I believe that the US may be forced to revisit the decision to establish diplomatic ties with your country in the first place," the letter said.

Senior US military officials described Zhu's words as foolhardy.

"This serves no purpose other than pissing off Congress," a US government source told the Taipei Times yesterday.

"I could see China retaliating in kind to a US attack on China, but to go as far as to publicly threaten a nuclear response is just crazy," the source said.

"I don't think comments like this do anything to deter the United States from its legal and moral obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act to assist Taiwan in defending itself," he said.

In comments reported in yesterday's editions of the Asian Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, Zhu said if the US intervened in a Taiwan Strait conflict, China "will be determined to respond."

"We Chinese will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all the cities east of Xian," Zhu said.

"Of course, the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese," the major general said.

When asked if Zhu's threat was credible, a former Pentagon official laughed off the claim.

"That's an exaggeration," he said. "There is no question about it."

China's force of nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles is currently "less than 20 CSS-4s [also called the Dong Feng-5]," the official said.

CSS-4s are silo-based missiles, and have a range of up to an estimated 12,000km.

The former Pentagon official also warned that the US' standing policy regarding use of nuclear weapons would not be favorable for Beijing as the US' nuclear deterrent was far more capable than China's.

STATISTICS

According to statistics supplied by the Federation of American Scientists, the US maintains an active deterrent force -- ready to be launched within 15 minutes -- of more than 2,000 nuclear weapons, the vast bulk of which are deployed on missile submarines and are capable of striking targets almost anywhere in the world.

A nuclear attack on the US or its forces would require "full response in kind, with the end focus being on regime change," the former Pentagon official said.

"If China nuked the US, it would mean the end of the Chinese Communist Party," he said.

Money talks: US Congress blocks EU weapons law

By Charles Snyder

STAFF REPORTER IN WASHINGTON

Supporters of Taiwan in the US House of Representatives were shocked after heavy lobbying from defense contractors and the US Chamber of Commerce defeated legislation on Thursday that would have penalized European nations and firms that sell weapons to China that could be used to attack Taiwan.

But the main sponsor of the bill, International Relations Committee chairman Henry Hyde, was reported to be planning to salvage the bill next week by attaching it to a State Department funding measure, where it might have a better chance of passage.

If it does not pass, Taiwan's supporters fear that this will embolden the European Community to lift its arms embargo on China next year, because of the assumption that Washington would not retaliate.

Opposition by the Bush administration, along with Europe's revulsion toward Beijing over its "Anti-Secession" Law targeting pro-independence Taiwanese, were credited with the EU's decision this year to drop earlier plans to lift the embargo.

The US House measure was all set to be approved by a wide margin, when the business community launched a last-minute lobbying blitz over concerns that they would lose business if the measure passed.

Aiding these efforts, according to congressional sources, were a couple of tactical blunders by the sponsors of the bill, which allowed some 100 members who earlier supported it to change their votes under the weight of the lobbying.

The vote on the measure was 215-203 in favor. But it was brought to the House floor as a "suspension" bill, which allowed it to get to a vote on a fast track in exchange for a requirement that it had to receive a two-thirds majority to be passed.

Such bills are usually uncontroversial and pass easily. While the bill could have been approved by unanimous consent on Wednesday, when it came up for floor debate, Hyde called instead for a voice vote, confident this would enhance the bill's credibility.

The vote, which had been delayed until Thursday, was to take five minutes, but instead it was kept open for another 20 minutes, giving the business lobby a wedge to convince more than 100 members to switch their votes.

Earlier, as many as 330 House members were expected to vote yes. Republican Representative Donald Manzullo, the chairman of the House Small Business Committee, was seen as crucial to the bill's defeat.

As the vote was proceeding, Manzullo handed out a flier on the floor urging his colleagues to reject the bill, and circulated a letter of opposition from a dozen powerful business groups.

In the letter, the groups argued that the bill would be counterproductive, would add to the costs of obtaining export licenses and would disrupt the defense industry's business relations with their customers.

Manzullo is also the head of the US-China interparliamentary exchange, which fosters good relations between the House and China's National People's Congress.

The US commitment to help Taiwan against a Chinese invasion was clearly on the mind of the legislators as the House considered the bill.

"Tens of thousands of American troops are currently deployed in Asia," said Democratic Representative Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, in a speech on the House floor on Wednesday in support of the bill.

"And American forces one day could be sent to the Taiwan Strait to help defend the island nation from invasion by mainland [sic] China," he said.

The bill itself notes that even "non-lethal" European arms sales to China "are far from benign, and enhance the prospects for the threat or use of force in resolving the status of Taiwan, a troubling prospect made more ominous" by China's recent enactment of the Anti-Secession Law.

The legislation would have required the US president to compile annual reports to Congress on European companies that continue to supply arms to China and European nations whose policies condone such sales.

If the countries and their firms were to appear on two annual lists, the president would have been required to impose penalties.

PLA recklessness could lead to war

People's Liberation Army Major General Zhu Chenghu's remarks to Hong Kong journalists about using nuclear weapons against the US in a conflict over Taiwan will probably be put down to undiplomatic willy-waving by a soldier out to impress, and -- in terms of PR skills -- out of his depth. That is, at least, how people in China and the US are likely to spin it, if only because to take notice of it in any serious way would be at the very least embarrassing and could have grave consequences toward US-China relations.

It is a standard tactic in both China and Taiwan to have someone make a statement about some controversial policy in a way that it remains plausibly deniable for the government yet gets the information into the public domain.

Yet it is difficult to imagine exactly why the Chinese government might want to confront the US in such a way at this moment. The "Anti-Secession" Law, with its explicit threat against an independent Taiwan, has already given impetus to a rethink of US defense policy regarding China, and has done much to resolve the murky ambiguity surrounding US reaction to China's military buildup toward strategic clarity. When US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asks just why and for what purpose China is beefing up its armed forces when it faces no external threat, we can see that the days when China was viewed through Clintonian rose-colored spectacles have clearly passed.

Taiwan apart, one of the main causes of tension between the US and China is the question of energy security. US hopes of keeping oil plentiful and cheap have not only been frustrated by the Iraq debacle but also by the soaring demand for oil in China's economy. This is why the bid for US-owned Unocal by China's CNOOC is so controversial. After Zhu's remarks, it's hard to see the US being relaxed enough to let the takeover go ahead. Add to that the fact that a major US defense review is being conducted in which China is likely to figure large, and now even larger, and there are a number or reasons why Beijing might have preferred that Zhu kept his mouth shut.

And yet whatever denials Beijing utters should be taken with a grain of salt. It is important to remember that Zhu is the dean of China's National Defense University. Beijing might say that his remarks do not represent official policy, but they certainly represent thinking at the highest levels of the People's Liberation Army. This is very worrying, because it backs up what other sources have been saying for a while about the PLA: That it is the preserve of gung-ho fantasists who think they can take on the US and win.

Readers might look askance at Zhu's remarks about "losing all cities east of Xian," which sounds more like Doctor Strangelove's General Ripper than sober strategic analysis. Let us not even speculate how people in those cities might feel about being expendable, since the views of the Chinese people are unimportant in Beijing's calculations. Let us just note that this kind of irresponsibility at this level is exactly the attitude that will lead to war. It is simply another part of the primitive psychopathology of the Chinese; they have yet to enter the modern world. Like medieval princelings, they think war is glorious, and to hell with the consequences for ordinary people.

Lien's meddling is hurting Taiwan

By Lin Cho-shui

Not long ago, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan's public approval ratings reached a 10-year-high, almost double the ratings for President Chen Shui-bian. A satisfied Lien said that one important reason for this was that his visit to China was helpful for cross-strait trade. He believes that Taiwan's economy must now rely fully on China, and thus feels that he has made a contribution worth recognizing.

Lien's attitude coincides with mainstream opinion in Taipei, which is that although Taiwan's economic growth has in the past relied on running a trade surplus with the US, China has in recent years been supplanting the US as Taiwan's major trading partner. Last year, for example, Taiwan's export trade to the US totaled US$50.5 billion, while exports to China -- including goods channeled through Hong Kong and Macau -- totaled US$61.7 billion.

More importantly, Taiwan's trade surplus with the US amounted to US$5.7 billion, while the trade surplus with China reached a startling US$28.3 billion. If we subtract that figure from the total export trade figure, then Taiwan has a trade deficit of US$22.1 billion.

Equally startling is that exports to China make up 25.9 percent of Taiwan's total exports, and 14.2 percent of GDP, evidence that Taiwan is living off Chinese money. That's something we should be ashamed of.

But focusing just on China provides an incomplete picture. When looking at trade between China and Taiwan, we must also look at China-US trade. Twenty-four percent of China's exports are destined for the US, with a net value of US$70 billion. Subtracting that number from the figure for China's total exports, China also has a trade deficit, to the tune of US$40.1 billion. This shows us how China is living off US money in the same way as Taiwan is living off Chinese money.

These numbers are no mere coincidences. The global aspect of business means that China-based businesspeople from Taiwan make up an extremely important structural link between China and the US.

The IT industry is the best example for explaining the interdependence of these three nations. The US provides Taiwanese manufacturers with basic components. Taiwanese manufacturers then set up production in China, importing machinery, equipment and semi-finished products from Taiwan, the production value of which amounted to US$50 billion last year.

In 2003, 92.5 percent of this production was exported and distributed across the globe with the help of US companies such as HP and Dell. Of these products, 35.8 percent ended up in the US, and only 7.5 percent stayed in China.

Although China is a huge country, total foreign trade makes up 82.1 percent of its GDP. Exports and enormous inflows of foreign capital are the engines behind its economic growth. According to some estimates, total Taiwanese investments in China has now exceeded US$100 billion, surpassing both US and Japanese investments. The products manufactured with this investment have created enormous export volumes for China, which has made a significant contribution to its economy.

In order to better use and control Taiwan's role in this triangular interdependence, China has strategically begun to attract Taiwanese businesses. The results are startling. In 2000, 53 percent of Taiwan's IT-hardware manufacturing took place in Taiwan and 32 percent in China. Last year, the figures were 15.6 percent and 71.4 percent, respectively, and the value of manufacturing in Taiwan had fallen from US$30.6 billion to US$10.9 billion according to Industrial Technology Intelligence Services. This makes it clear that Beijing's main goal is to attract Taiwanese businesspeople in the hope that they will bring great benefit to China's economic development, and not to sacrifice its own economic interests for some "united front." Or maybe we could say that the great economic benefits and the "united front" are two aspects of the same strategy.

The realities of the triangular interdependence between Taiwan, the US and China is that without the US as a source of fundamental technical components and an end-user market for Taiwanese manufacturers, China-based Taiwanese businesspeople would have no chance at all to invest in China, nor would Taiwan be exporting such large volumes to China. Thus, there is no such thing as Taiwan's reliance on China supplanting reliance on the US.

Taiwan's large volume of exports to China also implies large Taiwanese investment in China. What remains unchanged, however, is that Taiwan is still making its money in the US. The difference is that it is now cheap Chinese labor and the Beijing administration that are earning the salaries and taxes that originally remained in Taiwan.

The reality is that by using globalization to attract Taiwanese businesspeople, China has not only won massive benefits, but also widened the gap between rich and poor, a common phenomenon in the globalization process. The same phenomenon can be seen in Taiwan, and it has divided society into two camps. The majority feels that the opening of the three direct links must not move too fast, a concern that has become even stronger following Lien's visit to China.

In an opinion poll conducted by the Mainland Affairs Council in late May, 18.9 percent of respondents said that cross-strait exchanges are developing too slowly, down from 25.7 percent last year. On the other hand, 25.7 percent felt exchanges are moving too fast and 40.2 percent said they are moving at an appropriate pace, the highest numbers since 2001.

Lien and the pan-blue camp are oblivious to such evidence, and instead insist that we owe China a debt for developing trade while feeling proud of the achievements Taiwanese businesspeople have made on China's behalf. This would all be fine if it were merely a matter of stupidity, but Lien also tries to direct cross-strait developments, and that will only make matters worse.

Lin Cho-shui is a Democratic Progressive Party legislator.