China rattles arms at US Asia presence

Reuters | May 5 2005

China is expected to deploy three new strategic missiles over the next decade as part of an aggressive military build-up seen threatening US forces in the region, a US intelligence official said on Tuesday.

David Gordon, chairman of the National Intelligence Council, told a commission charged with overseeing the consolidation of US military bases that the arrival of new, more capable missiles coincided with China's growing influence on the balance of power in the Taiwan Straits.

"Strategic force modernisation is a continuing priority, and China will likely field three new strategic missiles -- more mobile, survivable and capable -- within a decade," Gordon said at a hearing of the Defence Base Realignment and Closure Commission.

He added, "Beijing has undertaken an impressive program of military modernisation that is tilting the balance of power in the Taiwan Straits and improving China's capabilities to threaten US forces in the region."

The National Intelligence Council, which reports to the new US intelligence czar, John Negroponte, focuses on long-term strategic concerns of the US intelligence community. It also produces periodic comprehensive reports known as national intelligence estimates.

Gordon's comments on Chinese missile development appeared to establish a time frame for a central feature of Beijing's overall arms build-up, which he said was funded by an estimated $60 billion annual defence budget in 2004.

In March, the Pentagon's Defence Intelligence Agency said China was continuing to develop three solid-propellant strategic missile systems -- the DF-31 and DF-31A road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles and the JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missile.

By 2015, the DIA estimated, the number of Chinese warheads capable of targeting the continental United States would increase "several fold."

Gordon told commission members the People's Liberation Army continued to acquire a range of modern conventional weapons, particularly air, air defence, anti-submarine, anti-surface ship reconnaissance, missile and battle management capabilities and to emphasise the professionalisation of its officer corps.