China is mobilizing some
of its short-range missiles near Taiwan as other military forces are
engaged in the largest war games in five years, according to U.S.
intelligence officials.
The missile activity
at two bases across the Taiwan Strait is raising concerns inside the
Pentagon that China's military may be set for test missile firings
at Taiwan -- similar to 1996 missile flight tests that led to a U.S.-China
confrontation.
According
to officials with access to U.S. intelligence reports, a U.S. spy
satellite photographed several CSS-6 missiles at a base in Fujian
province that was used for training exercises in the past but is normally
left unoccupied.
Two transporter-erector
launchers loaded with CSS-6s were spotted in the open at the training
base. Six others were in sheds and an unspecified number of other
missiles were hidden under camouflage nearby, the officials said.
"The missile unit
occupied a base that is only used for training," said one official.
The exact location of the missile training base could not be confirmed.
One official said it was located at Fuzhou, directly across the strait
from Taipei.
China
has built several missile bases in Fujian province over the past several
years, including the two newest ones at Xianyou and Yongan. The regional
command headquarters for the short-range missile forces is located
at Leping.
U.S. intelligence agencies
reported in March that a new base for CSS-7 short-range missiles was
completed at Xianyou -- about 135 miles across the Taiwan Strait from
the island. Additionally, part of a CSS-7 brigade recently left another
base opposite Taiwan for a mobile deployment exercise, the officials
said.
The
missiles are among the more than 300 CSS-6s and CSS-7s, also known
as M-9s and M-11s, that China has deployed opposite Taiwan in the
past several years. Administration national security officials have
said China plans to deploy up to 600 missiles at bases opposite Taiwan.
The Pentagon views the
continuing, large-scale missile deployment as destabilizing. The weapons
can attack all of Taiwan's military bases with little or no warning,
according to a recent Defense Intelligence Agency assessment.
A Chinese government-owned
newspaper in Hong Kong, Wen Wei Po, reported earlier this week that
the "large-scale" beach landing exercises centered on Dongshan
island will involve 100,000 troops, along with naval and air forces.
The last time Chinese
forces conducted a similar amphibious landing exercise was November
1995, the newspaper said.
As part of that exercise,
Chinese missile forces fired several short-range missiles in provocative
flight tests that hit waters near the northern and southern tips of
Taiwan.
A respected nongovernment
Hong Kong newspaper, Ming Pao, reported Tuesday that the exercise
had begun with "tens of thousands" troops from several regions
near Fujian province moving toward Dongshan island. It said the war
games would continue for two weeks.
"It
is pointed out that the main aim of the exercise will be to attack
and occupy Taiwan's offshore islands and counterattack U.S. military
intervention," the newspaper stated.
Commercial aircraft were
routed around Dongshan, and Chinese marines had taken control of the
ferry between the island and mainland.
One source told the newspaper
that the exercise involved electronic warfare operations, and that
the Chinese military for the first time was using reconnaissance satellites
and satellite navigation systems.
The exercise reportedly
kicked off Monday night with an airborne assault on Dongshan.
In
reaction to the 1996 missile tests, the Pentagon dispatched two aircraft
carrier battle groups to waters near Taiwan in a show of force.
China reacted by building
up its military capability to attack U.S. ships, including the purchase
of two Russian Sovremenny-class guided-missile destroyers equipped
with SSN-22 supersonic anti-ship missiles.
Until the recent missile
activity, Pentagon spokesmen have downplayed a series of Chinese military
exercises taking place along China's coasts.
The
first exercises took place on Woody island in the South China Sea,
where China has built an airstrip for projecting its power into strategic
sea lanes. Several thousand Chinese marines, accompanied by several
warships, stormed ashore on the island as part of maneuvers last week.
While the Woody island
war games were under way, China's northern navy conducted a sudden
dispersal exercise that is normally conducted before a military attack
or for protecting ships in port from bad weather.
Then in what officials
called "phase two" of regional war games, the Chinese began
massing more than 200 amphibious warfare vehicles on Dongshan island.
The official Chinese
military newspaper also reported this week that a Chinese bomber division
practiced low-level bombing runs May 28 as part of another exercise.
Also, Wen Wei Po quoted
an unidentified Chinese military source as saying the Dongshan exercise
will employ "advanced fighter planes, warships, missiles and
electronic-warfare equipment."
The source also told
the government-owned newspaper that the war games are practice for
testing new tactics and for "quickly launching and winding up
a war."
It also will help troops
study "ways of applying new-type equipment and translating new
type equipment into fighting capacity through real operations."
Some
Pentagon officials believe the war games could be preparation for
military action by Chinese forces against an outlying Taiwanese island,
or as part of sabre-rattling designed to intimidate the Taipei government.
Sun Yuxi, a Chinese Foreign
Ministry spokesman, said Tuesday in Beijing that the war games are
routine and normal.
中共講的一個中國是消滅中華民國,而一國兩制是要控制亞洲命脈的台灣戰略點,先吸乾台灣的財富,就可以不理會台灣人反應,立可弱台、滅台與亡台。美國人發現
Clinton 主政以來,被中共騙的程度多不勝舉,中共暗中發展殺手衛星,又積極要訂定太空和平計劃,小布希現在警覺到中共的厲害與其全球戰略的成功。不久之後,知道美國必須嘗到惡果。
Thursday June
7 11:13 AM ET
By JEFFREY ULBRICH, Associated Press Writer
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP)
- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, armed with graphic aids and
fresh evidence of a growing security threat from unpredictable nations,
pushed the anti-ballistic missile defense to NATO allies Thursday.
But he faced skepticism
on the first day of a two-day defense ministers meeting at the NATO
headquarters.
"Our
lack of defenses against ballistic missiles creates incentives for
missile proliferation which, combined with the development of nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, give future adversaries
the ability to hold our populations hostage to terror and blackmail,"'
Rumsfeld told the allies.
It's unlikely Rumsfeld
will make any more headway in bringing the allies around to Washington's
view than Secretary of State Colin Powell was able to do last week
at a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Budapest, Hungary.
And he faces an even more
skeptical Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov on Friday during
a meeting of the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council.
"We're going to keep
talking to our allies,'' Rumsfeld told reporters Wednesday, suggesting
no breakthrough is on the horizon. "We're going to talk to our
friends. We're going to talk to the People's Republic of China, and
we'll keep moving this along.''
Lord Robertson, the NATO
secretary-general, said the gathering in Brussels was ``an important
opportunity for allies to consult about the direction of U.S. thinking
before any decisions are made.''
"Responding to today's challenges means discussing not only
new U.S. thinking, but also developing European thinking,'' he said.
The
allies also were discussing the situation in the Balkans, where NATO
leads more than 60,000 troops on peacekeeping missions in Kosovo and
Bosnia, Macedonia, NATO-Russia relations, and the 19-nation alliance's
cooperation with the emerging defense arm of the European Union.
But missiles, clearly,
will be uppermost on everybody's mind.
Washington wants to develop
and deploy a system that will protect the United States and its allies
from ballistic missiles fired by what it calls "nations of concern.''
Exactly what kind of system that might be has yet to be determined.
Many of the allies fail
to see a real threat. Many who do believe that the solution is political,
not military. Others fear abandoning the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile
treaty between the United States and Russia would be detrimental to
overall European security. The Americans believe the ABM treaty has
outlived its usefulness.
"We understand this
conclusion is not welcomed by some," Rumsfeld said in his presentation
to the allies. "It is simply inescapable."
The secretary laid out
the threat Washington sees from nations like North Korea, Iran and
Iraq, in some cases illustrating actual deployment of missiles capable
of reaching allied territory.
"Rogue
states are acquiring ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction,"
he said. Biotechnology, robotics, and high density energy sources
"are putting unprecedented power in the hands of small countries
and terrorist groups."
He said the United States
believes that besides having a retaliatory nuclear and conventional
strike capability, the allies need to develop short, medium and long-range
missile defenses to dissuade a potential enemy from launching an attack.
These defenses will be
deployed against "handfuls of missiles, not hundreds," he
said, adding that the United States intends to press ahead with testing
a wide array of missile defense technologies.
French Defense Minister
Alain Richard said the allies are "in a listening phase"
of consultations with the United States.
German Defense Minister
Rudolf Scharping said there needs to be a coherent political answer
to the threats. "Technological means alone are not sufficient,"
he said.
Both Rumsfeld and Robertson
plan to confront the allies with their lagging progress on the program
adopted at the NATO summit in Washington two years ago to upgrade
and modernize military capability.
While all maintain their
pledge to do so, few are devoting sufficient resources to the effort.
"Unless
the nations around this table develop and maintain the necessary defense
capabilities, the ability of our governments to respond to political
calls for military action - whether through NATO or indeed through
the EU or elsewhere - will be severely limited."