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China's Nuclear-Missile Programme: Regional or Intercontinental?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Alice Langley Hsieh
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Extract

The 1965 debate between Lo Jui-ch'ing and Lin Piao over the question of priorities in national defence policy, which was prompted by the threatening situation created by the bombing of North Vietnam in February of that year, as well as hints appearing in 1969 during the more critical months of the Sino-Soviet border dispute, suggest that strong differences still exist amongst China's policy-makers as to whether priority should be accorded to quick-fix types of conventional defence or to establishing a sound economic and scientific-technological basis for the long-term development of China's national defence programme. This issue, which usually comes to the surface at a critical juncture in Chinese decision-making or in a crisis situation, is frequently difficult to identify since it may be indirectly expressed in other debates, no less real, regarding the emphasis to be accorded political as against military training, or over the best strategic defence for China. The interlocking nature of these issues cannot be ignored. Moreover, it is usually in the broad context of such debates that hints appear suggesting that China's political and military relationship with the Soviet Union remains a latent source of dissention within the Chinese leadership.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 45 , March 1971 , pp. 85 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1971

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References

1 For a brief analysis of this issue, see the author's statement before the Subcommittee on Arms Control, International Law and Organization of the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate, 9 April 1970, on China's Nuclear Strategy and a US Anti-China ABM. A more detailed version is available in the author's Communist China's Evolving Military Strategy and Doctrine, Institute for Defense Analyses, International and Social Studies Division, Research Paper P-646, June 1970. The latter paper and the present article are part of a study in preparation by the author of the, role of the debates over national defence priorities in China's decision-making process.

2 Fiscal Year 1971—Defense Program and Budget. A statement by Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird before a joint session of the Senate Armed Services and Appropriations Committees, 20 February 1970 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), 1970).

3 According to Laird's statement on 22 May 1969, the nuclear device delivered by a missile in the fourth test had a yield of less than 20 kilotons and used a primitive fission technology. As he pointed out, unless they intended to deploy an MRBM very soon, they would most likely develop a thermonuclear warhead with a yield of a few hundred kilotons for this missile. (“Safeguard Anti-ballistic Missile System,” Hearings Before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, Ninety-first Congress, First Session (GPO, 1969), p. 12Google Scholar). The October 1966 test involved a Soviet-type SS-4 medium-range ballistic missile with a reported range of about 500 miles (The Washington Post, 26 04 1970).Google Scholar

4 On 14 October 1970 the Chinese detonated their eleventh nuclear device, the tenth in the atmosphere. According to a spokesman for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission the test took place over Lop Nor in Sinkiang Province and was estimated to have a yield of 3 MT (The Washington Post, 15 10 1970).Google Scholar

5 Translated as The Politics of the Chinese Red Army, ed. Cheng, J. C. (Stanford: Hoover Institution, 1966).Google Scholar While this material remains the best documentation available to date on the People's Liberation Army, the reader should bear in mind that this material is dated 1961 and that the directives referred to were designed for tactical training purposes.

6 Academy of Military Science, “Our Armed Forces' Combat Laws and Ordinance Are Products of Mao Tse-tung's Military Thinking,” in Bulletin of Activities (1 08 1961).Google Scholar

7 New China News Agency Domestic Service (Peking), 8 July 1965.

8 On 22 May 1969 Secretary Laird had testified that it was estimated in 1966 that the Chinese were making an intensive effort to develop a missile in the 700–1,000–mile range, with deployment as early as 1967–68.

9 “Department of Defense Appropriations for 1971, Part 6, Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation,” Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, Ninety-first Congress, Second Session (GPO, 1970), pp. 3–4.Google Scholar

10 People's Daily, 25 04 1970.Google Scholar

11 Pyongyang Domestic Service, 26 04 1970.Google Scholar

12 Tirana Domestic Service, 25 04 1970.Google Scholar

13 NCNA, International Service (Peking), 28 04 1970.Google Scholar

14 Yu, Hung, “Long Live the Great Revolutionary Aspiration of the Chinese People—Celebrating the Successful Launching of China's First Man-Made Earth Satellite,” Peking Review, 5 06 1970.Google Scholar The article furthermore demonstrated the very considerable pride the Chinese took in their satellite—a reaction reminiscent of that voiced by Chou En-lai when after China's first detonation of a nuclear device he asserted: “Have we not … exploded an atom bomb? Has not the label ‘sick man of the East’ fastened on us by westerners been flung off?” According to Hung Yu: “This satellite is heavier than the combined weights of the first man-made satellites launched by the Soviet Union, the United States, France and Japan. In speed of research and manufacture this satellite outstrips the United States, the Soviet Union and other countries. It took China only five and a half years from the successful explosion of its first atom bomb to the successful launching of its first man-made satellite whereas it took the United States twelve and a half years and the Soviet Union eight years. Technically safe and reliable, China's satellite accurately entered its planned trajectory and is punctually operating according to plan. The launching was successful on the first attempt.” The article also emphasized the fact that the Chinese had developed the satellite in accordance with Mao's policy of self-reliance. Despite the fact that the launching might not have been possible without the provision by the Soviet Union in 1958–59 of a Soviet-type SS-4 missile, his assertion that “not one ‘foreigner’ took part in the work, not one foreign specimen or ‘foreign-made article’ was made use of,” was probably an indirect slap at the Soviet Union in view of Peking's 1963 charge that Moscow had refused to provide China with a sample atom bomb.

15 Before launching the satellite, the Chinese, as noted earlier, had only disclosed the test of a Soviet-type SS-4 medium-range ballistic missile in October 1966. The missile was estimated to have covered a distance of about 500 miles (The Washington Post, 26 04 1970).Google Scholar

16 This conclusion coincides in general with that of Colonel Robert B. Rigg (ret.) who writes that “technological and other limitations on ICBM development in China suggest Peking may be up against serious problems before it can produce operational ICBMs. Some experts characterize these limitations as immediate ‘quantum jump’ hurdles that challenge China's current technology, citing the fact that China probably used a 1,500 mile-range missile coupled with a second-stage rocket to place its satellite in orbit” (“What Kind of Nuclear Weapons Will Red China Develop?” Armed Forces Journal, 20 06 1970Google Scholar). Dr. Sidney Drell, Stanford University, testified on 6 May 1970, that “the recent Chinese satellite launch appears to have been based on the technology of IRBM shorter range rocket and indicates that space spectaculars for world-wide political effect are uppermost in their minds. Such a launch was certainly not a necessary step in an urgent program to develop an ICBM threat” (“Department of Defense Appropriation for 1971,” Part 6, pp. 907–908Google Scholar). Dr. Wolfgang Panofsky, Director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University, testified on 19 May 1970 that “the power to launch this satellite is well below that required for an ICBM to carry a thermonuclear warhead to the United States; therefore this event bears no relation to a prediction for a likely date for the emergence of a Chinese ICBM capability” (“Authorization for Military Procurement, Research and Development, Fiscal Year 1971, and Reserve Strength,” Part 3, Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, Ninety-first Congress, Second Session on S. 3367 and H.R. 17123 (GPO, 1970), p. 2218).Google Scholar

17 According to Dr. John S. Foster, Jr., testifying before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives on 27 April 1970, the launching of the earth satellite represented a “Chinese commitment to a large space program and … not simply an attempt to make a show by launching a single object into space.” In his view the launch was not associated with any kind of military weapon in space but primarily with intelligence and perhaps communications. He added that he did not think that this launch indicated that the Chinese were moving towards an IRBM rather than an ICBM, pointing out that “this launch indicates the first public view of what will be a large Communist Chinese space program, that their space program will have important military values to them, and that the space program will involve very large boosters …” (“Department of Defense Appropriations for 1971,” Part 6, pp. 1–3).Google Scholar

18 On 30 January 1970, President Nixon announced in the course of a press conference that he had decided to proceed with the second phase of the Safeguard anti-ballistic missile system, the purpose of which would be to defend Minuteman and to provide “an area defense to cover the possibility of attack by any minor power.” He asserted that the area defence role of the ABM is “absolutely essential” against a minor nuclear power such as China. Ten years from now Peking “may have a significant nuclear capability,” though it would not be a major nuclear power. But China would be sufficiently powerful for it to “be very important for the United States to have some kind of defense so that nuclear blackmail could not be used against [it]” or such Pacific allies as the Philippines or Japan. Relative to the Guam doctrine, the President said that the ABM system would give the United States “a credible foreign policy in the Pacific area which it otherwise would not have” (The Washington Post, 30 01 1970Google Scholar). In his report to the Congress on foreign policy on 18 February 1970, the President gave somewhat less emphasis to the nature of the attack China may be capable of launching throughout the 1970s, relying in large measure on the language used in March 1969 which stressed the security of the U.S. nuclear deterrent (The New York Times, 19 02 1970).Google Scholar

19 See, for example. DrFoster, John S.'s testimony of 27 04 1970Google Scholar (“Department of Defense Appropriations for 1971,” Part 6, pp. 3–4).Google Scholar

20 In his testimony of 22 May 1969, Laird, after noting that the Chinese ICBM development programme had not progressed as rapidly as estimated a year or two earlier, stated that although there was no direct evidence in late 1965 that the Chinese Communists were developing an ICBM, it was assumed that they were. He noted that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. had both moved from the shorter-range to the longer-range ballistic missiles, and that the Chinese were probably following the same course.

21 “Department of Defense Appropriations for 1971, Part 4, Safeguard Anti-Ballistic Missile System,” Hearings before Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, Ninety-first Congress, Second Session (GPO, 1970), p. 107.Google Scholar Earlier in the year the Department of Defense in response to a prepared question from Senator Symington had stated that the Chinese had rebuilt the test stand at their ICBM test site and, on this basis, one could predict an ICBM test within the current year (“Authorization for Military Procurement, Research and Development, Fiscal Year 1971, and Reserve Strength,” Part 3, p. 253).Google Scholar

22 According to Dr. John S. Foster, Jr., by IOC 1973 is meant the earliest the Chinese could have at least one missile ready with a thermonuclear warhead for firing to intercontinental range (“Authorization for Military Procurement, Research and Development, Fiscal Year 1971, and Reserve Strength,” p. 222Google Scholar). David Packard, Deputy Secretary of Defense, testified on 8 April 1970 that this represented about a one-year slippage from the 1969 estimate (“Department of Defense Appropriations for 1971, Part 4, Safeguard Anti-Ballistic Missile System,” p. 5).Google Scholar

23 The fuel tanks from the missile body, quite apart from the warhead and any penetration aids it may carry, can be designed to fragment into large pieces in order to further confuse the radar.

24 “Department of Defense Appropriations for 1971, Part 4, Safeguard Anti-Ballistic Missile System,” p. 28.Google Scholar

25 “Strategic and Foreign Policy Implications of ABM Systems,” Hearings before the Subcommittee on International Organization and Disarmament Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, Ninety-first Congress, First Session (GPO, 1969), Part I, p. 33.Google Scholar

26 Ibid. p. 38.

27 “Department of Defense Appropriations for 1971,” Part 6, p. 934.Google Scholar

28 Ibid. p. 907.

29 The Washington Post, 18 09 1970.Google Scholar The TU-16 is considered obsolete by western standards. It would have difficulty getting through any modern air defence system composed of high-speed fighters and surface-to-air missiles.