India Test-Fires Nuclear-Capable Missile

China has provided missile manufacturing facilities and expertise to Pakistan, and is the largest defense supplier to Islamabad, a military analyst said.

However, long-standing links between Beijing and Pakistani leaders and military forces mean that China could play a constructive role in attempting to curb Taliban and al Qaeda influence and regional advances in Pakistan, according to Lisa Curtis, senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank.

She testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, expressing her own views.

Curtis noted that China for years has fostered military advances in Pakistan, thereby helping to distract neighboring India, a major rival of China.

Beijing has provided Pakistan with short-range M-11 missiles, and "built a turnkey ballistic-missile manufacturing facility near the city of Rawalpindi and helped Pakistan develop the 750-km-range, solid-fueled Shaheen-1 ballistic missile," she noted. As well, China helped Pakistan to build nuclear reactors.

When India in 1998 tested a nuclear weapon and proved it possesses advanced missile technology, Pakistan ignored objections from the United States and other nations, moving ahead with a nuclear test of its own, with the two nations joining the exclusive club of nuclear-armed states.

Today, some military analysts are concerned that the Taliban, expanding control of a large portion of Pakistan that creeps within 60 miles of Islamabad, might seize control of Pakistani nuclear arms, and perhaps the entire nation as well, though others discount that possibility. Pakistan recently also has expanded a plutonium production site, according to a report from the Institute for Science and International Security. (Please see separate story in this issue.)

Meanwhile, India — the arch-rival to Pakistan — in recent weeks itself raised concerns, testing a nuclear-capable missile, according to the Daily Times in Pakistan.

The report stated that India fired a medium range surface-to-surface Agni-II missile with a 2,500-kilometer (1,553-mile) range from the Indian east coast. The weapon can carry a one-ton nuclear or conventional warhead.

That successful test, the third, clears the Agni-II to enter production, according to the report.

Curtis outlined the half-century military links between China and Pakistan, where Beijing has supplied various types of aircraft, frigates replete with helicopters, tanks, small arms and ammunition.

"Chinese policy toward Pakistan is driven primarily by its interest in countering Indian power in the region and diverting Indian military force and strategic attention away from China," Curtis said. "The China-Pakistan partnership serves both Chinese and Pakistani interests by presenting India with a potential two-front theater in the event of war with either country."

The benefactor relationship of China, a major power, toward Pakistan is much like that of the United States to Israel, Curtis said.

Beijing leaders welcome, up to a point, tensions between India and Pakistan, since that may distract New Delhi leaders and slow the rise of India to leading-power status rivaling that of China, Curtis said.

"Chinese officials also view a certain degree of India-Pakistan tension as advancing their own strategic interests as such friction bogs India down in South Asia and interferes with New Delhi’s ability to assert its global ambitions and compete with China at the international level," she explained.

To be sure, she added, China doesn’t with the Indo-Pakistani friction to spiral out of control, and has helped to defuse some hostilities there.

"China also is helping Pakistan develop a deep-sea port at the naval base at Gwadar in Pakistan’s province of Baluchistan on the Arabian Sea," Curtis continued. That could serve a peaceful, commercial purpose, permitting "China to secure oil and gas supplies from the Persian Gulf and project power in the Indian Ocean," she observed.

However, "There is concern that China may turn its investment in Gwadar Port into access for its warships."

China has increasingly moved to gain power-projection capabilities far beyond its shores, including a land-based intercontinental ballistic missile with a 7,000-mile range that can strike the United States; Jin Class submarines able to fire nuclear-tipped missiles with a range of almost 5,000 miles (that is, firing a missile 2,000 miles out in the Pacific Ocean that could strike New York City or Washington), and aircraft carriers.

Beijing is skillful in handling diplomacy with India and Pakistan, Curtis observed.

"China has been able to successfully pursue closer relations with India, especially on the economic front (bilateral trade rose from $5 billion to $40 billion in the course of five years), while continuing to pursue strong military and strategic ties to Pakistan," she noted.

While this triple tango of three nations holding nuclear-missile arsenals plays out, Curtis provided advice for the United States.

"Given that China, Pakistan, and India are nuclear-armed states and that border disputes continue to bedevil both India-Pakistan and India-China relations, the U.S. must pay close attention to the security dynamics of the region and seek opportunities to reduce military tensions and discourage further nuclear proliferation," she recommended.

Further, she said the United States should pressure Pakistan to veer from any move to increase its nuclear forces. "

"The U.S. should … seek to convince China to play a responsible role with regard to its nuclear cooperation with Pakistan, emphasizing the need to discourage nuclear-weapons stockpiling in a country facing the specter of further instability," she urged. "China and the U.S. share the goal of preventing Pakistan’s nuclear weapons from falling into the wrong hands — China perhaps even more so, given its geographic proximity to Pakistan. Recent encroachments by the Taliban into parts of northwest Pakistan have added a more dangerous dimension to nuclear proliferation in Pakistan and require new thinking among stakeholders in the region for avoiding a nightmare scenario in which al-Qaeda gains access to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons."

While one may well be concerned about the security of Pakistani nuclear-tipped missiles as the Taliban advances, she said there is no cause for panic, because "the Pakistan military is a professional and unified force that has adopted security procedures to avoid such a worst-case scenario."

That said, "recent developments in the country should add new impetus to regional efforts to control nuclear proliferation."

For example, the United States might wish to encourage greater regional trade.

"Trade flows are relatively undeveloped and would be particularly promising if transport links can be improved," she added.

Pakistan must not permit the Taliban to seize its nuclear arms, she concluded.

"With rising instability in nuclear-armed Pakistan and the threat of Taliban forces gaining influence there, both China and the U.S. must take responsibility for encouraging greater stability and coherence among Pakistan’s leadership," Curtis concluded. "China’s handling of the current crisis in Pakistan is a true test of its credentials as a responsible global player."

To read her testimony titled "China’s Military and Security Relationship with Pakistan" in full, please go to http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/tst052609a.cfm on the Web.