China's New ICBMs Targeting New York and D.C.?

July 16, 2002

Coverage of Friday's Pentagon report on communist China's military buildup got lost on the inside pages of Saturday's newspapers and didn't even rate a mention on the Sunday talk shows. But at least one of the national security shockers contained therein truly deserves front page coverage.

Beijing is building a new fleet of nuclear capable intercontinental ballistic missiles with a strike range that will include, according to U.S. military experts, nearly all of the United States.

China's older fleet of 20 liquid-fueled ICBMs was dangerous enough, because they had the capacity to reach America's West Coast. In fact, one of China's top military men, Lt. Gen. Xiong Guangkai, explicitly warned in 1996 that Beijing's war planners had Los Angeles in their nuclear crosshairs.

But according to the Pentagon's review of the Chinese buildup, in just three years Beijing's generals will be able to count on a fleet of ICBM's that can penetrate much more deeply into U.S. territory.

"Two new DF-31 missiles will be deployed sometime in the middle to later years of this decade," reported the Washington Times, quoting the Pentagon report as saying that China's new solid-fueled ICBM's "can reach much of the United States."

The New York Times coverage of Beijing's nuclear buildup was no more reassuring, warning, "China is replacing its current arsenal of 20 DF-5 intercontinental ballistic missiles, which can strike the western United States, with a longer-range version."

Worse still, by 2010 the People's Liberation Army hopes to triple the size of its ICBM arsenal, bringing the total number of missiles in China's U.S. nuke strike force to 60.

The estimated range of the new Chinese missiles was left vague in the Pentagon document. But the implication was clear enough. Chicago is now certainly within striking distance in any Chinese nuclear attack.

Add New York and Washington, D.C. to the list of U.S. cities that may soon become vulnerable - if they aren't already.

As the Pentagon's report makes clear, China is modernizing and expanding its nuclear arsenal with a specific purpose in mind: "reunification" with Taiwan. If the island nation's democratically elected leaders don't heed the handwriting on the wall in the next few years, Beijing means to force the issue.

China's ever-growing fleet of intermediate range missiles will crush Taiwan in a lightning quick strike. Meanwhile the U.S. Pacific Fleet will be held at bay through nuclear blackmail.

Six years ago, Gen. Xiong warned former U.S. Assistant Defense Secretary Charles Freeman:

"In the 1950s, you three times threatened nuclear strikes on China, and you could do that because we couldn't hit back. Now we can. So you are not going to threaten us again because, in the end, you care a lot more about Los Angeles than Taipei."

According to the latest Pentagon analysis, China's ability to make good on its nuclear blackmail now covers significantly more U.S. territory.

http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2002/7/16/124701