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China: Pentagon Report Predicts Chinese ICBM Growth By David Ruppe Moreover, China may be planning to put multiple nuclear warheads aboard its ICBMs, according to the report. The number of Chinese missiles capable of striking the United States may triple by the end of this decade, says the report — the Annual Report on the Military Power of the People’s Republic of China, required by Congress and made public by the Pentagon on Friday. “China currently has around 20 ICBMs capable of targeting the United States. This number will increase to around 30 by 2005 and may reach 60 by 2010,” the report says. China is improving all classes of its ballistic missiles both qualitatively and quantitatively, it says. “This modernization program will improve both China’s nuclear deterrence by increasing the number of warheads that can target the United States as well as improving its operational capabilities for contingencies in East Asia,” it says (see GSN, July 12). China is replacing its current liquid-fueled CSS-4 ICBMs, also known as the Dongfeng 5, with longer-range versions. Pentagon officials expect the upgrade to be completed by the middle of this decade, the report says. According to the report, Chinese officials have also been developing three solid propellant ICBMs — the Dongfeng 31, which could be ready for deployment before mid-decade, and mobile and submarine-launched versions of the same missile, which officials might begin deploying by mid- to late-decade. The Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community for years have forecast a dramatic growth of Chinese strategic nuclear capabilities as development programs have come to fruition. Some critics of the Bush administration’s aggressive national missile defense program have argued it will hasten China’s ICBM development, encouraging the country to build capabilities that can defeat a U.S. missile defense system. Defenders of the program have argued that China would improve its ICBM capabilities regardless of the whether the United States chose to deploy national missile defenses. The report lent support to both arguments. “China’s ballistic missile modernization began before it assessed that the United States would deploy a missile defense, but China likely will take measures to improve its ability to defeat the system in order to preserve its strategic deterrent,” the report says. Such measures would probably include “improved penetration packages for ICBMs, an increase in the number of deployed ICBMs, and perhaps development of a multiple warhead system for an ICBM, most likely for the CSS-4,” the report says. Pentagon officials also believe that China might be acquiring a variety of foreign technologies that it could use to develop anti-satellite weapons, including laser weapons, which could be used against U.S. missile defense satellites, the report says. Richard Fisher, an expert on Chinese military capabilities at the Jamestown Foundation, said China’s plans to upgrade the CSS-4s may suggest its intention to arm the missile with multiple nuclear warheads. “The question I would have, why are they building a new version of what is the equivalent to the Titan missile. Do they have [multiple warheads] for this new version? Or is it a new warhead chock full of decoys and other penetration aids?” he said.
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