China:  Pentagon Report Predicts Chinese ICBM Growth

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — In the next few years China will significantly upgrade its strategic missile forces to counter development of a U.S. missile defense system, according to a Pentagon report released last week (see GSN, Jan. 10).

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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United States:  Belgium Divided Over U.S. Request to Convert Plutonium

Belgian officials are debating a U.S. request to convert weapon-grade plutonium into mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel, Reuters reported today (see GSN, June 21).

The United States has asked Belgium to convert 80 kilograms of plutonium to MOX fuel as part of a U.S.-Russian arms control agreement, according to Reuters.  U.S. officials plan to build two MOX plants in the southeastern United States, but they first want to ship a small amount of plutonium to a plant in Belgium or France to simulate the conversion process, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said in Brussels (see GSN, May 9).

The Green Party in Belgium’s ruling coalition is against the plutonium shipment, according to Reuters.

Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, however, has said he supports the U.S. request.  While it will probably take the United States several years to build its own MOX plants, Belgium’s assistance could shorten the time by four years, Verhofstadt said.

“Belgium’s agreement in principle would constitute an important signal that our country is prepared to contribute to the international nuclear disarmament program, reducing the current nonproliferation risk and the problems involving the physical protection of nuclear materials,” Verhofstadt wrote in a letter to the Green Party (Bart Crols, Reuters/Nuclear Control Institute, July 12).

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Iran-Russia:  Spent-Fuel Agreement Nearly Complete

By Kerry Boyd
Global Security Newswire

Russia and Iran are nearing a formal agreement to return spent nuclear fuel from Iranian reactors for reprocessing and storage in Russia, Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said Friday at a Moscow press conference (see GSN, July 12).

Some work remains and relevant agencies are studying an amendment to the intergovernmental agreement on two nuclear reactors that Russia is helping build at Bushehr in Iran, he said.

Such a provision had not been included in the original contract because at the time there had been “no [Russian] legislative amendment allowing the import of spent nuclear fuel for storage and processing,” he said.

The Moscow Times reported last week that legislation passed in the early 1990s had banned nuclear waste imports, but Russian President Vladimir Putin signed legislation in July 2001 to allow such imports.

“Work to enact the law is drawing to an end.  In order to make this law effective, it was necessary to issue six governmental resolutions and set up a special commission for working out recommendations regarding the import of spent nuclear fuel from abroad,” Rumyantsev said.

Meanwhile, construction on the first nuclear reactor at Bushehr “is drawing to an end,” Rumyantsev said (see GSN, April 5).  “Heavy equipment is being supplied there now.  The casing of the reactor has been supplied, the piping, the pumps.  The turbine will be delivered in August,” he said.

Plans currently include a second nuclear reactor, and might include up to four reactor units in the future, Rumyantsev said.  Beyond the reactors, he said, “there is no more work with Iran.”

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