The expanding reach of China's nuclear missiles is worrisome to the US, which would like Chinese officials to be more open about their intentions, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday.
In a speech to the Academy of Military Sciences, Rumsfeld said nuclear capability is an area in which the US would like China to show more transparency.
"China ... is expanding its missile forces and enabling those forces to reach many areas of the world well beyond the Pacific region," Rumsfeld said. "Those advances in China's strategic strike capacity raise questions, particularly when there's an imperfect understanding of such developments on the part of others."
His statement echoed a theme he has pressed during his first visit to China since becoming defense secretary in 2001 -- that China's secretiveness creates international worries about its military intentions.
In his speech to the Academy of Military Sciences, Rumsfeld said many countries with an interest in the Asia-Pacific region are questioning China's military intentions.
While it is up to China to decide how much it wishes to say on the subject, "greater clarity would generate more certainty in the region," Rumsfeld said.
On Wednesday, the commander of China's nuclear missile forces reaffirmed to Rumsfeld that in an armed conflict China would not be the first to use nuclear weapons.
General Jing Zhiyuan, commander of the Second Artillery, which operates the country's growing arsenal of nuclear missiles, offered the assurance while hosting Rumsfeld as the first foreigner to visit his headquarters, according to two US officials who participated in the meeting.
Jing disavowed a public suggestion by another Chinese general earlier this year that the US could be targeted for a nuclear strike in the event that it intervened in a conflict over Taiwan.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
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