Beijing is determined to be more assertive

China's recent nuclear test so soon after the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty was extended, followed by a secret test of its latest improved intercontinental ballistic missile, have raised diplomatic eyebrows and drawn protests. Jakarta Post Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin takes a look at the background of the tests and the significant impact the Chinese moves are having on Beijing's relations with Tokyo.

HONG KONG (JP): China is resolutely seeking to purchase a well-tailored suit of military clothes while stressing all the while that it prefers to be shabbily dressed.

This is the message that comes across as Beijing presses ahead as the only nuclear power currently conducting nuclear test explosions, secretly conducts trials of a mobile solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile, and, according to calculations now being made at United States think-tanks, spends a great deal more on defense than the Chinese have admitted or foreigners have asserted.

This is predictable fashionable dress for any nation aspiring to hegemony-seeking superpower status, but Beijing still trots out the old verbal rags about not becoming a superpower and never seeking hegemony.

Since fresh foreign policy formulations are not to be expected amidst domestic political in-fighting, China will probably continue this pattern for as long as it can. China has one valid excuse -- it has a lot of catching up to do in relation to those powers already possessing a more glamorous nuclear wardrobe.

According to one informed calculation, the United States has conducted between 938 and 954 nuclear tests since the first successful one in New Mexico almost fifty years ago, in July 1945. Russia has carried out 936 tests since the Soviet Union first conducted a nuclear explosion in 1949. France has proceeded with 192 tests since 1960 and Britain has managed 44 since 1952. All four powers are observing a moratorium on all nuclear testing -- though in the British case, this is because they can only test at the U.S. underground sites, and the U.S. is observing the moratorium.

China has almost caught up with Britain, having conducted 42 tests since its first one in 1964. China, with several more tests planned, will almost certainly pass the British total before any comprehensive test ban treaty is finalized -- according to current expectations -- sometime in 1996. China may even hope to continue testing after such a treaty comes into force, according to one informed source. Beijing is currently arguing in the treaty negotiations that the comprehensive test ban should still permit nations to conduct tests for peaceful reasons, whatever they may be.

Certainly the Chinese would be quietly satisfied if newly- installed French President Jacques Chirac decides to conduct more tests in the South Pacific before the ban operates, since that would make China less lonely on its set course.

Similarly, another aspect of the catching-up process is that China, like the other nuclear powers before it, needs to experiment in getting bigger and bigger bangs with smaller and smaller bombs, or warheads. In this sense, the nuclear test on May 15 and the mobile ICBM test around May 29 are obviously part of a single program. China's current deployment of 14 ICBMs in fixed silos gives it the ability to hit any of the other nuclear powers, but also gives those powers the ability to wipe out China's nuclear threat quickly. So China is leap-frogging a prolonged state of acute nuclear vulnerability by developing its mobile ICBM which, with solid fuel, can already hit most potential nuclear and non-nuclear enemies. The key remains miniaturization of the nuclear warheads which the new, less easily detectable, mobile ICBM will carry.

It isn't easy to understand what is probably happening in China's opaque nuclear program. In the light of prevailing Chinese rhetoric, and almost complete lack of strategic transparency, it is likewise difficult to comprehend why Beijing is doing it.

Thus Chinese Vice Premier and Foreign Minister Qian Qichen recently tried to be all sweetness and light as he addressed a conference in Beijing organized by the Asia Society together with Dow Jones Publishing Corporation.

On the positive side, the speech was widely interpreted as conciliatory, but it contained all the usual phrases. "China favors the peaceful settlement of international disputes through dialog and negotiation, and opposes the resort to force or threat of force in handling state-to-state relations ... Opposed to hegemonism of all forms, China itself will never seek hegemony ... In the past century or more the Chinese people suffered tremendously from aggressions by foreign powers ... In its history China has never engaged in expansion or aggression of other countries ... China will never threaten or invade other countries ..."

The speech was delivered on May 14. In less than 24 hours, it was followed by the latest Chinese underground nuclear test, variously estimated at between 50 to 95 kilotons in strength. At almost the same time, China was denouncing the Philippines for its audacity in showing foreign correspondents the reefs and islands over a thousand miles from the Chinese coast which Beijing has recently grabbed and on which it has already built installations.

"Watch what we do, not what we say," former Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai once stressed to former President Richard Nixon, and many nations took that advice to heart as they reacted more critically to the nuclear test than to the clear sign of Chinese territorial expansionism.

Kazakhstan, the country closest to the Chinese nuclear test site at Lop Nor, asked Beijing to halt tests. Evidently the radiation level in Alma-Ata, the Kazakh capital, rose after the last Chinese underground test in October 1994.

Russia requested China to reconsider its plan for more tests, while Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas said Jakarta really regretted China's action. New Zealand promptly delivered a note of protest while Canada saw the Chinese explosion as a clear violation "of the positive spirit that led to the indefinite extension, supported by China, of the NPT just three days ago".

But out of all the reactions, the most interesting one came from Japan.

On the surface, the first Japanese reaction from Foreign Minister Yohei Kono was that the Chinese test was "extremely regrettable". Beneath the surface, sources say that Japanese diplomats walked out of a Sino-Japanese aid negotiation in protest. This undertow was important, since the Japanese bureaucrats proceeded to quietly push the politicians to take a firmer stand than usual -- now that "once again, China has thumbed its nose at the world", as the Japan Times graphically began a tough-worded editorial.

There were several strands in the Japanese reaction. The Chinese test was seen as an affront coming as it did soon after 178 nations had agreed to extend the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty for an unlimited period on condition that the Nuclear Five exercised restraint until a complete ban was agreed.

Japan was less inclined to tolerate China's blatant effort to perfect its nuclear arsenal just two months before the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombs dropping on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Chinese test came just a few days after Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama had returned from Beijing where he had urged China to halt tests. His visit had earlier been postponed from last October because of the Chinese test then -- now the Chinese had barely waited to get Murayama on his plane before doing another. All this was taking place as China showed clear signs of once again allowing Chinese "private citizens" to start agitating over Japanese war crimes fifty to sixty years ago.

Critically, the Chinese nuclear explosion struck at Japanese national pride. The timing of the test seemed to signal that Japanese power, principles and protests carried little weight in Beijing. The Chinese government obviously calculated that Japan would huff and puff but ultimately do nothing. This time, they were wrong.

After lengthy deliberations, the ultimate Japanese reaction was small in size but weighty in substance. As Tokyo announced that grant aid would be reduced by an unspecified amount, the Japanese government finally put its aid money behind its principles.

One of the conditions for Japanese aid has long been the military policies of recipient countries, with lack of transparency cited as an unacceptable failing. The Chinese nuclear test ensured that the Japanese would no longer ignore their own regulations.

To be sure, the Japanese decision was hedged with caveats. Yen loans, the largest part of the aid program, will not be affected. The amount of the cut has yet to be announced. It will probably not be large. Japanese leaders still stress that they do not wish to damage the overall Sino-Japanese relationship.

For all that, a major development is in the making. Already Tokyo has indicated that the amount China's aid-cut could further increase now that China has tested a new ICBM as well.

Ever since China and Japan normalized relations in 1972, China has frequently used what Japan did militarily in the past to put Tokyo on the defensive. Now Japan has a counter-weapon. It will use what China is doing militarily in the present for the same end.

But as China clearly signals that the Middle Kingdom is determined to assume an assertive nuclear-backed power position in Asian and global affairs, it may take much more than tougher words to put a resurgent China on the defensive.