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Washington Times
October 28, 1999
Pg. 21

By Bob Smith

Today, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the president's nominee as ambassador to China, Adm. Joseph Prueher. Adm. Prueher is a retired four-star, and former head of all Pacific Forces (CINCPAC).

Adm. Prueher's pro-China tilt while at CINCPAC reflects at best naivete and at worst a dangerous hubris that personal interactions can convert the Chinese from adversaries into friends. He has taken Chinese military officials to tour a U.S. nuclear submarine in Honolulu and to the Top Gun school in California. (These actions would now be prohibited by the amendment I attached to the Defense Authorization bill restricting military-to-military contacts between the U.S. Armed Forces and the PLA (Chinese Peoples Liberation Army). My restrictions were intended to prevent contacts that create a national security risk due to an inappropriate exposure.

He allegedly has violated the six assurances that defined Taiwan policy under Presidents Reagan and Bush, and which remain in force under President Clinton, making unauthorized efforts last fall to persuade the Taiwanese military to start talks with the PLA. Apparently the details are in a classified cable that at least one congressional office is seeking to obtain. Adm. Prueher allegedly ordered deletion of the section of the classified U.S. plan for the defense of Taiwan dealing with strategic matters, which has upset STRATCOM (Strategic Command) and riled the Air Force, causing them to object to Adm. Prueher's actions. The details of this also are classified.

Adm. Prueher ostensibly opposed Taiwan arm sales, specifically U.S. Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missiles, and submarines, and opposed any direct military wartime links with Taiwan (as prescribed in Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms' bill, the proposed Taiwan Security Enhancement Act). The most recent submarine the United States agreed to sell Taiwan was a 1944 model sold to Taiwan in the 1970s, despite Taiwan's desperate requests to buy diesel subs to be assembled and fitted out in Mississippi, based on modern German submarines.

Meanwhile, the Chinese, through espionage and through sales, have acquired high technology from the United States to build, integrate and launch more sophisticated, accurate and reliable nuclear weapons, now capable of reaching U.S. soil, and the Russians are selling advanced weaponry, including Kilo class submarines and Sukhoi-30 jet fighters, to the PRC. It could be argued that the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act would not have been necessary if officials like Adm. Prueher had not obstructed arms sales necessary to Taiwan's defense.

Adm. Prueher is said to have devised a new war plan for defending Taiwan -- which lost under two mock war exercises -- in other words, the U.S. could not defend Taiwan. The Air Force objected to the adoption of the plan since it would result in Taiwan's defeat, so it was technically put "on hold," an unprecedented step, by Gen. John Shalikashvili, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The new CINCPAC head, Dennis Blair (who recently made a disgraceful comment referring to Taiwan as being pollution in the punch bowl of the Pacific and said we should not defend Taiwan if it declared its independence from Red China) now is trying to have the Prueher plan returned to his jurisdiction and reviewed. Congress was never, I am told, briefed on these changes to the war plan.

As seen by the actions and statements of high-ranking U.S. military officers like Joe Prueher and Dennis Blair, it is becoming an open secret at the Pentagon that being pro-PRC is career-enhancing and that being pro-Taiwan is hazardous to one's career. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee deserves the opportunity and sufficient time to look into these disturbing allegations about Adm. Prueher and to examine the aforementioned documents that would shed light on his suitability for the highest U.S. diplomatic post in China.

Allowing Adm. Prueher to sail through confirmation without such a critical examination would, judging from numerous accounts, reward his blatantly partisan and unprofessional conduct. I would hope Adm. Prueher would be the first to recommend that these vital documents be provided to the Senate and to avert the delay that otherwise might obstruct his confirmation process.