U.S. refuses Chinese missile deal

December 20, 2002

The United States won’t accept an offer by China to reduce its missile buildup opposite Taiwan in exchange for a reduction in American arms sales to the island republic.

Senior Bush administration officials said if any such deal were to materialize, it would be up to Beijing and Taipei to work it out themselves, the Taipei Times reported.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a high-level administration official said Chinese President Jiang Zemin made the offer to President Bush Oct. 25 when he visited Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Chinese DF-15 ballistic missiles.

Chen Chien-jen, head of Taiwan’s Economic and Cultural Representative Office – the closest thing to an embassy the island maintains in the U.S. – informed the Legislative Yuan of the offer during a recent visit to Taipei. Chen told lawmakers then that Washington was unlikely to accept it.

In the mid-1990s, China began deploying short- and medium-range ballistic missiles opposite Taiwan. Chinese military officials have said the People’s Liberation Army plans to eventually deploy around 500 missiles; currently, China is believed to have deployed around 400.

If launched simultaneously, military experts believe Taiwan’s missile defenses, air bases and many urban centers would be devastated.

Chen also told lawmakers Washington would not lower its military alert status as long as Chinese missiles remain deployed opposite the island.

U.S. officials initially indicated they viewed Jiang’s offer as “casual,” the paper said, rather than a serious proposal.

But the senior official said this week that Bush regarded the offer as a serious one, noting that China has made similar offers in the past, before the Crawford meeting. Nevertheless, the official indicated that Washington dismissed the offer as unworkable, putting to rest fears that the U.S. would strike a deal with China and leave Taiwan vulnerable.

The first high-level U.S.-China military contacts of the Bush administration were held last week in Washington. China’s deputy chief of staff, Gen. Xiong Guangkai, traveled to the nation’s capital.

During his 2000 campaign, Bush called China a “strategic competitor,” shifting away from the Clinton administration’s consideration of China as a “strategic partner.”

The high-level military-to-military contact also comes nearly two years after a Chinese fighter jet crashed after bumping a U.S. Navy EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft in April 2001.