Pentagon, Senate Criticize China on Arms, Rights

The United States delivered a one-two punch to China on Thursday with a Pentagon report detailing Beijing’s missile and military buildup near Taiwan and a strongly worded Senate resolution condemning China’s recent human rights record.

The two moves are the latest evidence of the rift between Washington and Beijing that has been growing in the eight months since President Clinton visited China for a summit that appeared to herald a new era in Sino-U.S. relations.

Instead, Beijing’s increasing military presence in the South China Sea, its alleged use of U.S. satellite technology for military purposes, its recent crackdown on political dissidents and its $60-billion annual trade surplus with the United States are dominating the stage as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright leaves today for a two-day visit to Beijing that begins Monday. Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji is expected to visit Washington in April.

Appearing before the House International Affairs Committee, Albright acknowledged that “sharp differences” have emerged with China but defended Clinton administration policy.

“Let me stress,” she said, that “in our relations with China, engagement is not endorsement.”

The Pentagon report on the security situation in the Taiwan Strait, a copy of which was provided to The Times, concludes that by 2005, China “will possess the capability to attack Taiwan with air and missile strikes” that would cripple key military facilities and infrastructure.

Beijing considers Taiwan a province of China, and although both governments have said they seek a peaceful solution to their long-standing dispute, Chinese leaders have refused to renounce use of military force.

The 27-page report, a sanitized version of a classified report sent to Congress earlier in the week, warns that China’s short-range ballistic-missile force “is expected to grow substantially” in the next several years. The report also says China is likely to introduce long-range, land-attack cruise missiles as part of a sweeping modernization of its military.

While its contents were not a surprise, the detailed review of China’s increasingly sophisticated military force is likely to fuel efforts on Capitol Hill to develop and ultimately deploy high-tech missile-defense systems for the United States and such key Asian allies as Japan and perhaps Taiwan.

U.S. experts say China now has about 100 mobile M-9 and M-11 short-range ballistic missiles along its coast, presumably aimed at Taiwan. That is at least double the number believed to have been deployed in 1996, when Clinton sent two aircraft carrier battle groups into the Taiwan Strait after China began a provocative series of missile tests near Taiwan.

“It’s not a serious escalation, but it’s worrying,” a senior administration official said of the buildup. “It raises tensions unnecessarily.”

Although the report delineates the lopsided military imbalance between Taiwan and China, the world’s most populous nation, it also concludes that the security picture has not significantly changed in recent years because Taiwan is also upgrading its military forces.

Overall, the area “remains calm with no threat of imminent hostilities.”

The report also seeks to dampen fears that China could pose a military threat outside its immediate area, saying such a capability “is still decades” away.

In a separate move Thursday, the Senate condemned China’s human rights policy in a resolution approved by all 99 members present.

Next week, the House of Representatives is expected to support the resolution, which is a nonbinding expression of congressional opinion and does not have the force of law.

The resolution accuses Beijing of “widespread and well-documented human rights abuses in China and Tibet and . . . coercive implementation of family planning policies and the sale of human organs taken from executed prisoners.”

The Senate resolution urges the U.S. delegation at the United Nations Human Rights Commission to sponsor a U.N. resolution condemning China. The commission meets in Geneva from March 22 to April 30.

Clinton will not decide whether to push for such a resolution, which China has bitterly fought in the past, until after Albright’s meetings with Chinese President Jiang Zemin and other leaders Monday and Tuesday, according to another senior administration official.

Human rights groups applauded the Senate action.

“I think it’s crucial that Secretary Albright convey the strong consensus of support for action in Geneva,” said Mike Jendrzejczyk, Washington director of Human Rights Watch/Asia.