China against amending ABM

BEIJING, JUNE 9. China has warned the United States against seeking absolute military advantage over the rest of the world by attempting to amend the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty of 1972, the official media reported today.

Though the U.S. has said it wants to revise the ABM treaty to protect itself from "missile threats" of the so-called rogue states, the real reason for the U.S. insistence is to seek an absolute military advantage over the rest of the world, China's top disarmament official, Mr. Sha Zukang, said.

Mr. Sha, director-general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Department of Disarmament and Arms Control, told Xinhua news agency that China opposed any revision of the ABM treaty.

"It is a clear and steadfast stand,'' he stressed while accusing Washington of selfishness in pressing Russia to agree to amend the ABM treaty.

The National Missile Defence (NMD) system would also serve as a kind of ``amplifier'' to the U.S. offensive forces and nullify the progress made in U.S.-Russia bilateral nuclear disarmament, Mr. Sha said. If the U.S. succeeded in its attempt to revise the treaty, an arms race in space would be inevitable, Mr. Sha said, stressing that the U.S. views the missile defence system as an important part of its plan to control space.

Under the U.S. plan, part of its missile defence system would be deployed in space and be targeted at space objects; and the other part of the system would be based in space for providing target and navigational information for ground weapons systems, he said.

If the plan was carried out, space would become a new weapons base and battlefield, he said.

Pointing out that the ABM treaty remained the cornerstone for global strategic balance and stability, Mr. Sha said revisions of treaty would undermine the global strategic balance and stability and seriously affect international peace and security.He said the ABM treaty between the U.S. and Russia, which restricted development and deployment of any national ballistic missile defence system, safeguarded the relative strategic balance and stability among the U.S., Russia and other nuclear weapons states.

- PTI

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