Secretary Rumsfeld really has a nerve. He gets invited to visit a Chinese missile base and then he complains that his hosts aren't showing him enough and pretend to be spending less than they are. And he doesn't even mention one of the most important developments in that part of the globe, the Central Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (CANWFZ).
Perhaps it was just a matter of not being able to pronounce the new acronymn. More likely, Rumsfeld didn't want to talk about it because, together with Britain and France, he's already sent objections to the United Nations.
While it isn't necessary for the five Central Asian nations to get their treaty approved by the nuclear club, since Russia and China have already agreed that it's a good idea, it would be nice if the other nuclear powers endorsed it too.
But, the United States, the country most concerned about nuclear proliferation; the one that went to war on the mere suspicion that the people living in the deserts of Iraq might be hiding some weapons of mass destruction; the nation that agitates itself on a daily basis that Iran might accumulate enough enriched uranium to make itself a bomb (in maybe a decade), objects to five nations declaring that they want nothing to do with the stuff. What is Rumsfeld thinking?
Well, if the pattern runs true to form, then Rumsfeld's suspicions of China's bad faith and denigration of the Central Asian agreement is yet another example of ascribing one's own motives and behavior to others. In this case, Rumsfeld suspects the Chinese of hiding something, because that's what he's doing. Because, having gotten the UN inspectors and the IAEA to certify that Iraq is "clean" ("no WMD there" as Bush declared in his comedy act), the American Department of Defense is busily constructing missile bases in Iraq so "we can fight them over there and don't have to fight them over here."
But Bush was referring to terrorists, you object, not Russian and Chinese missiles. The missile defense shield we are building is going to protect us from those--the missile defense shield whose interceptor tests keep failing, falling short in the Pacific and whose precise location is never specified. Seems to me that if missiles are going to be intercepted, it would make sense to do it closer to where they take off, rather than where they are expected to land. Which may be why China repeated its commitment not to use nuclear missiles first--a subtle hint that whatever concerns are prompting the furious construction in Iraq, which China is surely able to detect, even if Syrian and Irania snooping is prevented from seeing it up close, is a lot of wasted effort.
Because, of course, once the bases and bunkers are ready to receive the nuclear weapons (flown in perhaps from Germany where they are no longer needed and wanted), China and Russia are going to object, just as the Soviet Union did when we planted missiles in Turkey and they had to send some over to Cuba to get US to take those out.
Maybe Rumsfeld thinks this time it will be different; that because Russia and China have put up with our nuclear missiles in Turkey (yes, they're back), Italy, Spain, Germany and Britain, having them in Iraq as well won't be a bother. Or maybe Rumsfeld thinks that once they are in, Russia and China would have to do something drastic to get them out and they've already promised not to use their missiles first--a similar promise on which the US has already renegged.
Anyway, with all these weighty issues on and under the table, the New York Times saw fit to report on Rumsfeld's whilrwind trip, in his high-tech command center jumbo jet by telling us about the Mongolian horse he couldn't bring back home.
*******
Short quiz:
What other nation on the face of the earth has it's weapons of mass destruction set up in other countries? None
What is the Pentagon building in Iraq with a construction budget that is twice as large for this year as for the previous four combined? Your guess is as good as mine. For certain they aren't building a hundred more temporary bases like those they already have.
Once China's oil pipeline from Venezuela to the Pacific is complete, what security measures will it have to take to keep it safe from "terrorist" attacks? Again, your guess is as good as mine.
********
US analysts, officials worry about China's military rise
`ANTI-ACCESS': Although US leaders may visit China, they are only allowed limited access, and are concerned that the US is clearly considered the hypothetical enemy
AFP , WASHINGTON
Sunday, Oct 23, 2005,Page 5
"You have this disconnect between what China says it's doing and what it's actually doing."
China is doing little to ease concerns over its rapid military buildup which is threatening US dominance in a wide range of areas, from Asian sea lanes to outer space, US experts said on Friday.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld went on a maiden trip this week to Beijing to directly express US worries over China's growing military power, but the experts felt the assurances he received had failed to lift long-held suspicions.
While Chinese leaders allowed an unprecedented visit for Rumsfeld to the Strategic Rocket Forces headquarters in Beijing, he was not be allowed into the national military command center, the Chinese version of the Pentagon.
"The Chinese in their own context made a small step forward, but in reality there is no indication they are ready to embark on a new era of military transparency in the American or European sense," said Richard Fisher of the US-based International Assessment and Strategy Center.
"Not only can Chinese nuclear missiles now target the continental United States, the whole configuration of the new Chinese force is clearly designed with the United States as the hypothetical enemy," Fisher said.
Randall Schriver, a senior State Department official who was in charge of East Asian policy until early this year, said that "the core issue of our concerns over China's military buildup and its transparency remains unresolved," despite Rumsfeld's rare trip.
While the US defense chief has maintained Beijing's military expenditure was two to three times greater than publicly acknowledged, his Chinese counterpart, Cao Guangchuan, (???) denied any understatement of military spending.
Specific concerns about the lack of transparency in China's military budget and capability were also not addressed, including the deployment of medium- and short-range missiles that can hit US airbases.
Some experts believe China will develop a world-class defense industry within the next 10 to 15 years and seeks to replace the US as the preeminent power in the Pacific -- even globally. By some estimates, China now has the world's third-largest defense budget, after the US and Russia, spending from US$70 billion to US$90 billion per year. But China says defense spending would be just US$30 billion this year.
"I think it was good for the Chinese to hear directly from the secretary of defense as he actually in many ways was speaking for more than the United States," said Peter Brookes, a former US deputy assistant secretary of defense.
"There are concerns about the transparency of China's military budget and its growth from others in the region who are nervous as well, including Japan, Taiwan and even Southeast Asia, but reluctant to speak up about it," he said.
China argues its military budget is dwarfed by US spending, which last year totaled US$440 billion, and that its preoccupation is to lift living standards of the poor.
"But what you are seeing are capabilities to, in fact, deny the United States from projecting power in the region," said Dan Blumenthal, a former senior director for China and Taiwan in the US Secretary of Defense's office.
"So you have this disconnect between what China says it's doing and what it is actually doing," he said.
One area of concern that has given the US sleepless nights is what Blumenthal calls China's anti-access capabilities.
"China is developing military capabilities that make it much more difficult for the United States to access hot spots in the region and, therefore, to meet its various defense commitments which have underguarded security order in the region for half a century," he said.
Beijing has deployed various classes of destroyers with cruise missiles that can fire upon US carrier battle groups, "which is a matter of great concern," he said.
In addition, Blumenthal said, China's deployment of diesel submarines made it "much more difficult and complicated for US carrier battle groups to get into areas that they need to get into."
China is also accused of using its manned space program to achieve its military ambitions.
"Every mission performed either electronic or military surveillance for the PLA [People's Liberation Army] but China is loathe to admit, from the very inception, that its manned space program has directly served military purposes," Fisher said.
Brookes said that the US' immediate concern is that China will try to use its new military might on Taiwan to effect unification. Also, China has as many as 750 ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan, according to the Pentagon. Many of them are reportedly also capable of striking US forces stationed in Japan.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/10/23/2003276996