After stunning the Clinton administration, Yu Shuning of the Chinese Embassy in Washington said they wanted "to let the international community, including the United States government, know China's principled issue on Taiwan." China's policy, he said, remained "peaceful unification with one country, two systems," adding the document will help Washington "better understand the settlement of the issue."

With the victory of the Chinese revolution in 1949, the defeated Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, fled to the island of Taiwan. Backed by the United States they for years posed as the government of China, but in 1972 Washington normalized relations with Beijing and agreed that "all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is part of China."

Two important pieces of legislation are now before Congress: the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act and another granting China permanent normal trade relations and entry into the World Trade Organization. The first is opposed by the Clinton administration, the second was introduced by the U.S. president. This is another arena of division and factional fighting among sections of the U.S. ruling class, played out in conflicts in the various branches of government.

But the direction of Washington is clear to the Chinese: further arming of Taiwan and steps to put in place an antimissile system that would give the United States a nuclear first-strike capacity without fear of retaliation from China. The shield would involve deploying a scheme of land-, sea-, and air-based equipment in Japan and south Korea designed to locate and destroy missiles fired from China and north Korea.

The Pentagon, for example, is considering providing Taiwan with four advanced Arleigh Burke–class guided missile destroyers equipped with Aegis air defense radars that are part of the proposed antimissile system. U.S. Rear Adm. Eric McVadon, retired, said that China has made clear that providing the warships to Taiwan would be "the straw that breaks the camel's back. They have said they will react harshly if we do it."

Opponents of China's entry into the World Trade Organization have seized on these developments to whittle down support for Clinton's proposal in Congress, raising concerns at the White House that the measure may fail.  
 

Building antimissile system

How quickly, and with what methods, an antimissile system should be put in place is being debated in U.S. ruling circles. The goal of the system is to intercept long-range missiles fired at the continental United States, thus putting nuclear blackmail back into Washington's hands. This will strengthen its military encirclement of the Chinese workers state especially, as the U.S. rulers prepare for the day when they will attempt to use force to overturn noncapitalist social relations there, in Russia, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe.

On January 18 the second of three scheduled tests failed when an "interceptor missile" fired from the Marshall Islands missed its target. The first test last October was initially touted as a success, although questions were later raised about the results. The failure of the second test provoked calls by a layer of the big business class to not put an unrealistic deadline on deciding whether or not to move forward with development.

U.S. president William Clinton has set a June deadline for making a decision on the system after the third and final test, which is scheduled for May.

"Test Missile is Rushed, Pentagon Official Says," was the headline in a February 15 article in the New York Times. According to the article, the Pentagon's director of operational testing and evaluation, Philip Coyle, stated the government agency was under unnecessary pressure to meet an "artificial" summer deadline for making a decision on whether to set up the missile system.

But Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Henry Shelton said he was "comfortable with the June deadline." Last year the U.S. Defense Department had also launched tests for destroying medium-range missiles using warheads from the Army's Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) program and new Patriot Pac-3 "interceptor" missiles. Washington is preparing deployment of the THAAD missile system at U.S. military installations around the world.  
 

Debate on missile treaty

Last year U.S. defense secretary William Cohen announced that the White House would spend several billion dollars for the national antiballistic missile system. Such a system would violate the Antiballistic Missile Treaty (ABM), signed in 1972 with the Soviet Union. The treaty presumed neither state would launch nuclear-armed missiles against the other if it lacked the means to block retaliation.

"This may be one of the most serious decisions a president of the United States may make in modern times, and if the technology isn't there to look at all of the options, then we have to defer the decision," declared Sen. Charles Hagel, a supporter of the missile system.

The editors of the New York Times, nervous that the move would mean dumping the ABM Treaty too soon before an "effective" and "dependable" missile system is in place, advised Clinton to "resist any impulse" to rush through approving the missile system for narrow political considerations of the legacy of his presidency or to boost Democratic election prospects next fall. The Times chided Clinton's hastiness as a "political tactic" to enhance Vice-President Albert Gore's campaign for the presidency.

The Wall Street Journal called for immediately scrapping the ABM Treaty altogether, while echoing similar sentiments against a "political maneuver" in the presidential campaign.

Currently the U.S. government is seeking to gain Moscow's acquiescence to the missile system and to allow the amending of the ABM treaty. At a February 18 meeting in Washington, several White House officials met with Sergei Ivanov, Russian head of national security, for six hours to press their demands. Ivanov maintained the Kremlin's stance against the U.S. missile system stating, "If we are talking about slightly modifying the ABM treaty at the same time as deploying national defense, these two things simply can't exist together."

Meanwhile, Washington's plans for setting up a missile system in Japan hit a snag recently when Tokyo asked in January to cut its financial commitments to underwrite U.S. military bases there. Last year the Japanese government forked over $2.5 billion to the United States for its military forces in Japan, which include 45,000 military personnel. Pentagon officials say with the closure of U.S. bases in the Philippines, the bases in Japan are essential for its security concerns in Asia. According to the New York Times, Tokyo states that with continued recession there, its "military support payments are a heavy burden."

Both governments had agreed to conduct research on deploying the missile system, estimated at $521 million in the initial phase.  
 
 
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