China’s Missile Launches Threaten to Trigger an Arms Race in Asia

By firing ballistic missiles near Taiwan’s coast, China has sown the seeds of a new and worrisome Asian arms race, military experts and defense officials say.

Defense ministry officials from Tokyo to New Delhi have been forced to reassess their strategies in the face of China’s willingness to use medium-range missiles, capable of carrying nuclear warheads, to achieve its political goals.

“The first time you use missiles in this way, you go over a threshold,” said a Western diplomat in Beijing. “This is a unique event in the region. It is the first time a nuclear-capable missile has been used other than [as] a pure test into an instrumented range.”

The People’s Liberation Army first fired six medium-range M-9 missiles at a sea target 85 miles north of Taiwan in July after Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui infuriated the Beijing leadership by traveling on a private visit to the United States.

This month, the army fired four more M-9s at sea targets even closer to Taiwan, only 20 miles away at one point.

In an interview published here Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Li Qianming--the deputy commander of China’s elite 2nd Artillery Force, which fired the missiles--said the tests were conducted to enhance China’s ability to “win a regional war of advanced technology.”

Li described the performance of the missiles in the Chinese arsenal as “more advanced than the Scud missiles, which became famous during the Gulf War.” Indeed, Asia military experts have been impressed by the accuracy of the M-9 missiles. According to the Nikkei newspaper in Tokyo, the Japan Defense Agency reported that the missiles are accurate to within about 330 to 550 yards.

For China’s neighbors, particularly Japan and South Korea, the missile firings represent a new willingness by the Chinese military, bolstered by five years of substantial defense budget increases, to use force in the region. In this respect, the tests and massive military exercises on China’s coast have implications beyond the immediate threat they pose for Taiwan.

“Things may work out for Taiwan and China in the future,” said another Western diplomat, “but it may not work out for China and the rest of Asia. There will be some new questions about how China operates in the area. There will be evaluations of China’s threat capabilities and intentions. The impression is that in the post-Taiwan-crisis era, China will be much more willing to use force than it was before.”

Masashi Nishihara, a research director for the National Institute for Defense Studies in Tokyo, said the missile tests will cause Japan to consider more seriously a proposal from the United States to co-develop the Theater Missile Defense, or TMD, system that has been studied for the past two years.

“This is definitely a more urgent issue with us now--how to cope with missiles of that kind in the future,” Nishihara said. “So far, it has been very difficult for Japan in a full-fledged manner to develop Theater Missile Defense with America because of constitutional restraints and all kinds of political issues.”

Last year, the Japanese government committed $4 million to study the missile defense system, sometimes described as a “mini Star Wars,” in which satellites would be used to spot incoming missiles and direct their destruction. The government has deferred until 1997 a decision about joining the project, estimated to cost as much as $20 billion.

China has publicly opposed the missile defense project. A government arms expert said in an interview last year that the development of the project would mean “expanding the arms race to space.” In January 1995, another Chinese official warned that development of the system “would disturb the Asia-Pacific regional situation.”

In the longer term, said Nishihara, China’s missile tests will create pressure in Japan to develop its own offensive weapons system. At this point, Japan is restrained by its constitution from developing such systems.

“As China is crossing over this threshold, we may be forced to cross over our own kind of threshold and develop second-strike capabilities,” said Nishihara, whose institute is a research arm of the Japan Defense Agency. “This is a very difficult decision for us. I don’t think that, for a while, the government is ready to do this, but I think we have to start considering the options.”

In South Korea, the Chinese missile firings have prompted newspaper editorials and appeals from defense experts calling for the government to increase its own military capabilities.

“The military threat of China on Taiwan during the past two weeks shattered the illusion Asians had for peace in Asia,” wrote Moon Myong Ho, director of the Asia-Pacific Research Center.

Moon, who is also editorial page editor of the Munhwa Ilbo daily newspaper in Seoul, called for South Korea and other Asian countries to join in a collective security system.

“This is the lesson Chinese military strength has taught Korea,” Moon wrote in the Tuesday editions of his newspaper.

China’s missile flexing and the specter of Japan rearming have produced beginning elements of a strategic chain reaction.

“Expansion of China militarily, and Japan’s reaction to it by seeking countermeasures, is a great source of fear to Korea,” commented Hong Doo Seung, a professor of military affairs at Seoul National University. “Although the world is generally enjoying a mood of peace now, the military might of our neighbors is a potential threat, and we will have to live under constant worry if we do not build our own security means.”

In Taiwan, government officials and scholars said China’s missile tests have had a major impact on defense thinking.

One fear throughout Asia is that China could begin to station missiles along its borders or even on islands in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea, said Andrew Yang of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies, a Taiwan think tank specializing in security issues.

“Instead of deploying long-range aircraft, China could now save some money by putting M-9 missiles on some islands,” Yang noted. The money would be saved not only in the cost of planes but also in runways, pilots and training.

A senior Taiwanese official with defense responsibilities acknowledged that Taiwan was taken aback by the missile tests.

“The Chinese have done something quite impressive in terms of their missiles,” he said. “Their tests, both last year and this year, have been very accurate.”

The United States this week rejected Taiwan’s request for six diesel-powered submarines, but it agreed to sell Stinger antiaircraft missiles and other military hardware to the Taiwanese.

Defense scholars say that throughout Asia there will be a rush to obtain surface-to-surface missiles and antimissile systems, even though such items are extremely expensive.

South Korea--worried by North Korea’s Nodong-1 missiles--recently told the United States it wants to cancel a 1979 agreement under which it promised to restrict its missiles to a range of about 112 miles.

Taiwan had been developing a missile system called the Tian Ma (Sky Horse), but it is said to have shut down the program under pressure from the United States. Now defense experts in Taiwan say the program may be resumed.

Last summer, representatives of Lockheed Corp. visited Taipei to talk about the possible sale of a TMD system even though it will not be ready for a few years.

Times staff writer Jim Mann in Taipei and researcher Chi Jung Nam in Seoul contributed to this report.