http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30546-2001Sep1 By Mike Allen Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, September 2, 2001; Page A01 The United States plans to offer Beijing an advance look at its plans for testing President Bush's proposed missile defense shield, part of an emerging effort to soften Chinese opposition to the plan, Bush administration officials said yesterday. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said the proposal is aimed at convincing China it would not be threatened by the shield and should not accelerate a buildup that is underway of nuclear missiles pointed at the United States. "We want to engage China on issues regarding missile defense, and we really haven't," Rice said. "We want to have serious talks with them about why this is not a threat to them. We want to have serious talks with them about why we think stability in the Asia-Pacific region would be well served by this capability." Another administration official said that as another sweetener for China, the United States will signal that it recognizes both sides might want to resume nuclear weapons testing in the future. Such tests, now precluded by a voluntary worldwide moratorium, could allow China to field a new generation of mobile, multiple warhead missiles. The official said the United States has no plans for nuclear tests but reserves the right to conduct them because of concerns about the safety of nuclear weapons. "We have to maintain the reliability of our stockpile," the official said. "That's not something we can deny to others." The new proposals on nuclear arms and missile defense are part of an emerging policy toward China that is taking shape as Bush prepares for a summit with Chinese President Jiang Zemin in Beijing next month. Administration officials said they plan to float some of their new ideas during preparatory talks for the summit in the next few weeks. The relationship got off to a sour start when China held 24 crew members of a Navy surveillance plane for 11 days during Bush's third month in office. Now the administration is engaged in intense debate over the proper carrots and sticks to offer the Chinese: At the same time it is offering Beijing inducements to cooperate with missile defense, it is taking a tougher line on nuclear non-proliferation, In response to concern over missile transfers to Pakistan, the United States imposed sanctions yesterday on a major Chinese arms manufacturer and banned U.S. companies from launching their satellites on Chinese rockets. A senior U.S. official said yesterday that this American effort to stem missile proliferation showed that the Bush administration is not relying exclusively on the development of a missile shield to confront the dangers posed by the spread of weapons of mass destruction. "We're being realistic," another administration official said. "We imposed these sanctions because the law required us to and because it was right to. Overall, it's still about reducing the world's reliance on nuclear weapons." China has about two dozen missiles pointed at the United States, and scholars expect that number to increase tenfold over the next decade. Rice said that because of the ongoing buildup, opponents of a missile defense shield cannot argue that it "is somehow going to drive an arms race." "No one likes the fact that there is a modernization going on. We don't think it's good for the world," Rice said. "But if we stopped all of our missile defense plans tomorrow, you would not see the Chinese cease their military modernization. This is a modernization that predates serious missile defense negotiations." Rice was interviewed after the New York Times posted an article on its Web site http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/international/asia/02CHIN.html saying that the United States planned to abandon its objections to the Chinese buildup in an effort to overcome that country's opposition to Bush's missile defense program. "The implication here that the U.S. is acquiescing in the Chinese nuclear modernization in order to buy China's acceptance of missile defense is just not right," Rice said. "The United States will continue to say that further nuclear buildup is not necessary and is not good for peace and stability. There's no conscious policy to try to take advantage of this recognition of the Chinese military modernization for something else." The possibility of resumed nuclear tests by either side is a controversial idea. Bush opposes ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which bans testing of nuclear weapons and was rejected by the Senate in 1999, on the grounds that it is not verifiable or enforceable. The president supports an informal moratorium on testing that was initiated in 1992 by his father. "Testing is not a near-term issue for anyone," Rice said. "We believe that the moratorium should stay in place. We don't believe that anyone has any reason to test." Conservatives warned the administration against giving too much ground for the sake of the missile shield. Kenneth Adelman, who was President Ronald Reagan's arms-control director, said he disagreed with the notion that "if you act very sweetly toward the Chinese, the Chinese will reciprocate." "My experience over many years of negotiating with the Chinese is that they take what you give and give almost nothing in return," Adelman said. Staff writer Alan Sipress contributed to this report. © 2001 The Washington Post Company
