World

U.S. Warned On Missile Shields Plans

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

July 18, 2000 / 10:50 AM EDT / CBS

China and Russia have again warned the United States of "grave" security consequences if it goes ahead to build missile shields.

In a joint statement referring to a shield for the U.S., Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Russian leader Vladimir Putin said "The plan by the United States to develop a National Missile Defense System (NMD) seeks unilateral military and security advantages."

"Implementing this plan will have the most grave adverse consequences not only to the national security of Russia, China and other countries, but also to the security and international strategic stability of the United States itself."

According to the statement, they said missile shields for the United States and Asia threatened a new arms race. Capping a summit between two formerly hostile neighbors, the two countries were brought closer by common suspicion of U.S. intentions.

But diplomats said the statement revealed they were not united on the issue.

"When you get down to the nitty gritty, they are still two countries with distinct strategic interests," a diplomat said.

Nothing in the joint statement indicated that Russia was abandoning its position that it may be prepared to allow the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to be changed to allow the United States to build an NMD, he said.

"This still is a step short of ruling out that Russia might at some stage accept amendments to ABM," he said. "Russia doesn't want to foreclose that option."

Russia is said to be open to minor ABM revisions in an effort to negotiate nuclear weapons with the United States so they could reduce Moscow's burden of keeping expensive and unsafe arsenal. Meanwhile, China would be vehemently opposed to such a move.

Washington has proposed building a NMD system against missile attacks from "states of concern" such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq and a Theatre Missile Defense (TMD) system to shield its troops and allies in Asia.

Such reasoning was "actually a ruse to cover its attempt to violate the ABM," the Sino-Russian statement said.

China, widely thought to have provided missile technology to some of the states Washington is most worried about, has suggested ominously it would rethink previous non-proliferation pledges if the United States goes ahead with the NMD.

China is even more vehemently opposed to a TMD system. Beijing fears it would cover Taiwan, which China regards as a rebel province and has threatened to invade if the island declares independence or drags its feet on reunification talks.

The statement made plain Russian support for that opposition.

"The incorporation of Taiwan into any foreign missile defense system is unacceptable and will seriously undermine regional stability," it said.

Putin's second meeting with Jiang this month followed a visit to China last week by U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen.

Cohen's trip was aimed at utting back on track military ties frozen after NATO's bombing of the Beijing embassy in Belgrade last year.

He also tried to assure the Communist leadership the TMD plan was not aimed at China. But Beijing had said in advance nothing Cohen could say would ease the vehemence of its opposition to TMD.

It says the U.S. belief that North Korea could build a missile capable of hitting the United States by 2005 exaggerates the threat from Pyongyang.

Washington urged Putin, who flies on Wednesday to North Korea on the first visit by any Russian or Soviet leader to the Stalinist state, to press Pyongyang about its missile program.

Despite the statement's focus on the United States, Jiang said the evolving Beijing-Moscow axis was "a new type of cooperative relationship which is not an alliance, not confrontational and not aimed at any third country."

Jiang, a Soviet-trained engineer, called it an "important success" and said China and Russia would "completely cooperate in the areas of politics, economics, science and technology, military affairs and international affairs."

The cosiness of ties between Jiang and Putin was underscored by closed-door talks which ran nearly double the allotted one hour and opened with banter in Russian.

Beijing and Moscow have found further common ground in opposition to international intervention in domestic conflicts on humanitarian grounds, for example over Kosovo last year.

Both countries are targets of Western criticism over their human rights records, especially in Chechnya and Tibet. They say their domestic policies are their own affairs.

China is a key customer for Russian oil, natural gas and arms while Russia wants better access to China's huge market.

Xinhua news agency reported on Monday that two-way trade between the two giant neighbors rose 31.56 percent year-on-year to $3.56 billion in the first half of this year.
Bilateral trade is on pace to eclipse last year's $5 billion, but it is far below recent pledges to hit $20 billion by 2000.

After visiting North Korea, Putin heads for the southern Japanese island of Okinawa on Friday evening for the annual gathering of the Group of Eight nations, which also includes the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada.