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China Steps Up Rhetoric against U.S. Missile Defense
By Richard Weitz
Chinese officials are becoming increasingly vocal about U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) developments in the Asia-Pacific region as well as the newly elevated U.S. security profile in their region resulting from the U.S. “rebalancing” toward the Asia-Pacific region (“Pivot and Parry: China’s Response to America’s New Defense Strategy,” China Brief, March 15). During his visit to Japan last month, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced the U.S. and Japanese governments had agreed to construct a second advanced BMD radar, in southern Japan. The new X-band radar would join an existing AN/TPY-2 radar in Japan’s northern Aomori Prefecture in 2006. ) The U.S. Missile Defense Agency and the Pacific Command are considering constructing a third such radar in Southeast Asia, such as in the Philippines (Wall Street Journal, August 23). Panetta emphasized U.S. BMD are not designed against China. When Panetta met his Chinese counterpart, however, Defense Minister Liang Guanglie bluntly responded to Panetta’s assertion that the new BMD radar was to “cope with North Korean ballistic missiles which threaten U.S. homeland.” by asking whether: “Isn’t the base in Aomori prefecture...enough?”
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