NewsMax.com
Monday, Feb. 5, 2001

The Washington Times, based on information from its sources in the American military, is reporting Monday that:

One senior United States official said, "The Russians will sell anything to the Chinese that the Chinese want to buy.

"[The Russians have begun] helping Chinese ballistic-missile programs and nuclear programs, which are of course targeted on Russia.

"It's one thing if they want to help [the Chinese] screw the United States, which is in their common interest right now, but this just seems to be mindless.

"It's stupidity on the Russians' part. It is going to hurt them in the long term."

Those long-range rockets are capable of being tipped with atomic bombs, and Russia is also busy selling Beijing its strategic nuclear-warhead technology.

But the sale of Russian missiles and related technology to the Chinese doesn't stop there. It is accelerating in several other fields, with Russia's state-owned arms-export company, Rosvooruzheniye, becoming China's major supplier.

Here are some of the factors contributing to increased tensions:

• During the final two years of the Clinton-Gore administration, marked by strong efforts to mollify the communist regime in Beijing through trade agreements, the Chinese increased dramatically the number of their short-range missiles aimed at Taiwan.

• These short-range weapons – purchased from Russia's arsenal – are CSS-6s and CSS-7s missiles, known also as M-9s and M-11s. An advanced version, CSS-7 Mod 2, was introduced in late 1999.

• In 1998, there were almost 50 such short-range missiles poised on the China coast along the Taiwan Strait, targeted directly at its breakaway republic of Taiwan.

• A year later, the number had increased to 150.

• China now has as many as 300 of these "theater missiles," which have a range lesser than the intercontinental ballistic missiles it is procuring from Russia.

• They all have enough range to strike targets throughout the little island republic of Taiwan.

• In just a few years, that number in place could easily swell to as many as 1,000.

• Requiring virtually no warning, they are increasing the risk of conflict between not only China and Taiwan but also China and the United States, which is bound by treaty to come to Taiwan's defense if it is attacked.

• Despite U.S. protests that those missiles are increasing the danger of conflict across the Taiwan Strait, China's military leaders "keep on building," an American official said.

"If the Chinese keep on doing what they're doing, we're going to make theater-missile systems available to the Taiwanese."

• Those would be in addition to the most-advanced U.S. missile defense available, a version of the Patriot system known as GEM PAC-2, which Taiwan has already deployed around its capital, Taipei.

• As China continues to ramp up its attack missiles aimed at Taiwan, the United States has informed Beijing it is considering selling Taipei more than one of its advanced $1 billion Aegis-equipped warships armed with "fleet air defenses" capable of countering China's current arsenal of anti-ship weapons.

They would not, however, be outfitted with the Navy's two regional missile-defense systems, not yet fielded.

• Russia has already been helping China develop its own sea-borne missile capability.

This includes sale to Beijing of two Sovremenny-class guided-missile destroyers armed with supersonic SSN-22 Sunburn anti-ship missiles, and scores of Su-27s that can be equipped with advanced Russian A-12 guided missiles.

• Russia has also sold some of its Badger bombers capable of missile attacks on ships.

• Beijing has been seeking to purchase an advanced airborne warning-and-control jet from Russia, after Israel canceled a similar deal at U.S. insistence back in July.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Russia

China-Taiwan

Missile Defense