The Federation of American Scientists and National Defense Resource Council have just released a book on "Chinese Nuclear Forces and U.S. Nuclear War Planning," found at http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/Book2006.pdf. Although it is pretty technical, it is well worth reading at least the executive summary.
Reuters summarizes the main finds of the book in the story below. The congressionally created "bipartisan" panel to which it refers was established to hype the thesis of China threat and is staffed with its clergy. It is notoriously one-sided in its hearings and reports and has little credibility among dispassionate observers of China.
Chas
U.S. 'exaggerates' China's defense
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The United States has been exaggerating China's
nuclear clout in a process that could lock the two into a Cold War-style
arms race, two arms-control advocacy groups said in a report on Thursday.
The Defense Department and U.S. intelligence agencies have portrayed Chinese
weapons developments as more threatening than warranted, to justify building
a new generation of weapons, according to the study by the Federation of
American Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"The report's main finding is that the Pentagon and others routinely
highlight specific incidents out of context that inaccurately portray a
looming Chinese threat," the groups said in a statement.
Specifically, they said, the Defense Department and U.S. intelligence
agencies had been "embellishing China's submarine and long-range missile
capabilities."
China, in turn, views U.S. arms upgrades as a reason for modernizing its
arsenal, said the 250-page report, which is based on an analysis of
declassified and unclassified U.S. government documents as well as
commercial satellite images of Chinese installations.
That could pitch the two into "a dangerous action-and-reaction competition
reminiscent of the Cold War," the two groups said.
"Military planners always need a rationale -- a real or potential danger --
for why they must have new weapons or new strategies and plans," said the
study, "Chinese Nuclear Forces and U.S. Nuclear War Planning."
"With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which occupied that role for
almost 50 years, the United States has turned its attention to China to help
fill the vacuum," it said.
The report faulted China for cloaking its nuclear forces in secrecy amid
what it portrayed as a U.S. government scare campaign bolstered by
conservative media and think tanks.
The Pentagon and the office of the Director of National Intelligence had no
immediate comment.
'Realistic picture'
Larry Wortzel, outgoing chairman of a congressionally created bipartisan
panel that studies U.S.-China security issues, said he thought the Pentagon
had painted a "realistic picture of what China is doing in the nuclear
arena."
Beijing has been developing new generations of mobile ballistic missiles,
experimenting with maneuverable warheads and multiple independently targeted
re-entry vehicles as well as "developing countermeasures that make its
nuclear force a more serious threat," he said in reply to a query from
Reuters.
The U.S. arsenal of about 10,000 nuclear weapons dwarfed China's roughly 200
and would continue to do so, the report said.
In a long-range planning study put out in February, the Pentagon voiced
alarm at China's investments in "sophisticated land and sea-based (nuclear
strike) systems" and said Beijing's buildup put a premium on developing U.S.
forces "capable of sustained operations at great distances into denied
areas."
China has about 20 ballistic missiles capable of reaching the continental
United States; the United States has more than 830 missiles -- most with
multiple warheads -- that can hit China, it added.
"China is no Soviet Union," said Robert Norris, a Natural Resources Defense
Council analyst and a report co-author. He said the Pentagon had been using
China to justify buying new missiles, destroyers, submarines and fighter
planes.
Hans Kristensen, project director at the Federation of American Scientists
and the report's lead author, told Reuters, "The hype has occurred, as far
as we can see, in the assessments of the size of the Chinese nuclear
arsenal, predicting and reporting when new systems will be deployed, and in
'cherry-picking' dramatic new developments taken out of context that
overstate a threat."
Copyright 2006 Reuters.