China and the US fought a verbal skirmish last week over the possible use of nuclear weapons against each other, underscoring the often precarious relations between Beijing and Washington.
China fired the first salvo, a belligerent statement by Major General Zhu Chenghu (朱成虎) to foreign correspondents. Zhu said China would aim nuclear weapons at American cities if US forces intervened in a Chinese assault to prevent Taiwan from turning its de facto separation from China into formal independence.
The US response was subtle but unmistakable at the very end of a Pentagon report on China's military power. It warned that China should avoid a conflict over Taiwan involving the US as that "would give rise to a long-term hostile relationship between the two nations -- a result that would not be in China's interests."
In the briefing arranged by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Zhu said: "If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons."
"Position-guided ammunition" looks like a bad translation. The general probably meant "precision-guided munitions," sometimes called "smart bombs."
"If the Americans are determined to interfere, then we will be determined to respond," Zhu said. "We Chinese will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all the cities east of Xian."
"Of course," he asserted, "the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese."
The general said this was his personal view. The foreign ministry reinforced that just after he spoke, suggesting a scripted ploy. No serving officer in China makes policy statements without clearance from the top.
That led to speculation about what the Chinese were up to. Zhu, aware that the Pentagon was about to issue a report critical of China's military buildup, may have mounted a preemptive strike. As he acknowledged, China lacks the forces to take on the US with conventional weapons and thus might resort to nuclear arms.
Clearly, however, this was not a new threat. Ten years ago, Lieutenant General Xiong Guangkai (熊光楷), then a senior officer on the general staff, issued a similar warning. In the meantime, many Chinese have said the US would not put a US city at nuclear risk in a conflict over Taiwan and would not fight to defend the island.
A former commander of the US Pacific Command, Admiral Dennis Blair, told the Washington Post: "They think it's good to have a mad dog in your closet who might scare your potential adversaries."
Blair and other senior US officers have personally but privately cautioned Chinese leaders in recent years not to miscalculate US capabilities and intentions.
Whatever Zhu's motives, the US government took his threat seriously. A State Department spokesman called his remarks "highly irresponsible."
The Pentagon's report on Chinese military power was in preparation long before Zhu issued the nuclear warning. Nonetheless, it noted that China has deployed or is in final development of ballistic missiles that could hit anywhere in the US and addressed the issues raised by the general, in the context of China's threat to Taiwan.
The report said that China "does not yet possess the military capability to accomplish with confidence its political objectives on the island, particularly when confronted with outside intervention," meaning the US.
Further, a war "could severely retard economic development," the report said, adding that international sanctions against Beijing, either by individual states or by groups of states, could severely damage Beijing's economic development.
"China has claimed spectacular economic growth rates of 7 to 10 percent in recent years," it said.
Politically, a war over Taiwan could "lead to instability on the mainland," it said.
The report noted that a record 58,000 domestic protests, many of them violent, erupted in China last year. A failure in an attack on Taiwan, the report said, "would almost certainly result in severe repercussions" for leaders who had advocated military action.
The Pentagon's final caution: "Beijing must calculate the probability of US intervention in any conflict in the Taiwan Strait."
Richard Halloran is a writer based in Hawaii.
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