Chinese Nukes
Nuclear buildup.

September 5, 2001 12:55 p.m.

he New York Times reported Sunday on the Bush administration's alleged new approach to trying to get the Chinese to acquiesce to an American missile-defense system: dropping U.S. objections to the Chinese missile buildup. Over the last few days the administration has been denying and backpedaling like mad, until yesterday the White House felt compelled to issue a statement saying that yes, indeed, we still object to the Chinese missile buildup.

There were a couple of misunderstandings both in the administration's now-disavowed approach to China, and in the harsh reaction to it from Democrats and Republicans. The chief one is the notion that it matters in the least what we say about China's nuclear buildup. Does anyone really think that, if we object to the Chinese modernization push, someone will pipe up at the next Politburo meeting: "Gentlemen: Yes, developing new missiles is key to our aspirations as a great power, it is essential to our long-term goal of taking back Taiwan, and it is a matter involving national honor; but Colin Powell says he doesn't like the idea. So, hey, let's drop it and do something else. How about modernizing the highway system instead?"

China will build new missiles for the same reason that we oppose the Kyoto treaty, that India agitates to take all of Kashmir, and that the French protect their dairy farmers: It is in their interest to do so. This brings us to the other folly inherent in the Bush administration's maneuvering: the assumption that anything can keep the Chinese from opposing missile defense. China will build new missiles as a matter not just of prestige, but of cold-blooded calculation. Missiles increase China's coercive power over Taiwan and the United States. Anything that threatens that coercive potential — i.e., missile defense — works to lessen Chinese power; the Chinese won't agree to it even if we promise to paint their new, modernized missiles red-white-and-blue and have Colin Powell sit in the reviewing stand when they're paraded through Tiananmen Square.

Which brings us to another mistake commonly made in considering this issue: the idea that it is missile defense that is prompting the Chinese to build their missiles. Actually, their modernization campaign was under way even back when President Clinton was swearing eternal fealty to the ABM Treaty. So when it comes to the new arms race in Asia, China has been out of the starting blocks for a long time now. The highbrow arms-control explanation for the Chinese buildup is that China needs to maintain a "survivable" force — one that could weather a U.S. first strike and then hit back. But this is silly. The Chinese force is not survivable now, even without missile defense. China has about two dozen missiles, a tiny number compared to the U.S. force. And the warheads are not kept on the missiles, and the rockets are liquid-fueled — meaning they would have to be readied far in advance in a crisis, equipped with the warheads and gassed up, which would give us ample opportunity to take them out.

The bottom line is that we can try to soothe Chinese feelings all we like and ditch our missile-defense plans tomorrow, but they are still going to build new nukes and scream bloody murder about a U.S. defense system. This is because, fundamentally, international relations is not about feelings or talk, but about power, about the hard facts on the ground. In this case, they clearly dictate that China should build up. They also dictate that we should take the initial steps to being able to protect ourselves from that and other buildups around the world. Unless we manage to talk ourselves out of it, in a fog of fantasy and weak thinking.