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US China Experts Urge Clinton Delay Missile Shield
A group of 45 US China experts on Thursday joined a chorus of analysts and former officials urging President Bill Clinton to delay a decision on whether to deploy a national missile defence system.
The academics and diplomats said in a letter to Clinton they were concerned that deploying the system, aimed at blocking attacks by emerging ``hostile powers'', would damage US security and economic relations with Beijing.
"Current plans for NMD deployment are likely to serve as a catalyst for China to accelerate nuclear weapons modernisation, since it believes that even a simple missile defence configuration will leave its nuclear arsenal vulnerable," they said.
"A deployment decision at this time may also make US cooperation with China on a range of issues more difficult, particularly with respect to Taiwan and regional security questions.
"In addition, the US plans to expand trade and economic relations with China would be adversely affected by a precipitous NMD deployment decision," they added.
Clinton has said he will decide later this year whether to go ahead with the $60 billion system which Russia, China and many other US' European allies say would undermine arms control agreements by violating the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.
CHINESE BUILD-UP
China has already said if the system is deployed it will prompt Beijing to build up its nuclear missile arsenal, which is now, at about 20 missiles, minuscule compared with the thousands of warheads deployed by Russia and America.
In a visit to Beijing last week, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stressed that NMD is not aimed at the major powers and China had nothing to fear from it.
But Beijing fears that, once begun, it will develop into a more comprehensive system that would neutralise the Chinese arsenal. US analysts also warn that any Chinese build-up would prompt an arms race involving India and Pakistan.
The project has become embroiled in US politics ahead of the November presidential election, with Republicans calling for an even more ambitious missile shield than Clinton and the presumed Democratic candidate, Vice President Al Gore.
Although the Pentagon still fully supports the programme, many analysts believe Clinton will find a way to avoid a concrete commitment to go ahead while keeping open the option for his successor after he leaves office in January.
With a tight timeframe required for building a system by the target date of 2005, he might authorise contracts be put out for the first stage -- building a radar station in Alaska next summer -- while arguing this was not a final commitment to deploy and thus did not violate the ABM.
The signatures of the Chinese specialists were gathered by the Council for a Liveable World, a private Washington group which lobbies for nuclear disarmament.
They included Arthur W. Hummel, Jr., ambassador to China in the 1980s, David Lampton, Director of China Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Harlan Jencks, China security expert at the University of California, Berkeley, William Kirby, director of Harvard's Asia Centre and John Holden, President of the National Committee on US-China Relations.
CLINTON URGED TO DELAY
Several of the country's most respected national security figures, many of whom had held senior positions during Clinton's presidency, signed another letter urging delay earlier this month.
They included former Defence Secretary William Perry, who has played a key role in designing Clinton's policy toward socialist North Korea, whose potential missile threat is cited as a major reason that an NMD system is needed.
Senator Joseph Biden, the senior Democrat on the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, questioned the impact and feasibility of NMD and said he was considering introducing a resolution urging Clinton to put off a binding decision.
"What I worry about is the next president being boxed in," he told reporters at a briefing this week.
Republican leaders are also sceptical of Clinton's approach, believing it is insufficient and that he may give away too much to Russia in trying to secure amendments to the ABM which would allow it to go ahead.
The presumed Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush says he wants a more ambitious system which would protect US allies as well.
The Pentagon has scheduled a crucial test of the system over the Pacific Ocean on July 7, after which Defence Secretary William Cohen will make a formal recommendation to Clinton on whether to go ahead with the NMD project.
Clinton says he will take into account the feasibility of such a system, its cost, its impact on the overall national security system and an assessment of the threat to the United States when he makes his decision.
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