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China has yet to deploy anti-carrier guided-missiles: official

ROC Central News Agency

2009/11/25 19:59:21

Taipei, Nov. 25 (CNA) A Taiwan national defense official said Wednesday that China has not yet deployed guided missiles aimed at preventing U.S. aircraft carriers from entering waters surrounding Taiwan.

China, however, is studying the possibility of deploying such missiles, Major General Ching Yen-yuan, the executive officer of the Ministry of National Defense's information unit, said in response to a query by Legislator Lin Yu-fang.

A local newspaper said Wednesday that a U.S. Navy report revealed recently that China is poised to deploy the anti-ship missiles, the first of its kind in the world, in an apparent attempt to make the waters surrounding Taiwan off limits for U.S. carrier battle groups.

The report said that China began to develop the missiles after the 1996 crisis of the Taiwan Straits, during which then U.S. President Bill Clinton sent two carrier battle groups to waters near Taiwan following China's test firing of missiles into waters off the coasts of Keelung in northern Taiwan and Kaohsiung in the south.

Speaking at a Legislative Yuan's committee meeting Wednesday, Major General Ching said that his ministry has been well informed of China's missile development program and, after a careful assessment, has concluded that China's anti-carrier missiles program is still in the "research stage".

On the lawmaker's question that China has achieved a major technological breakthrough in adjusting the flying direction of the war heads, after they return to the atmosphere, to make them capable of tracing the moving carrier battle groups, the major general said that talks of China's missile technological breakthrough have been "exaggerated".

But he said that in theory, China's missiles if launched massively and targeted at a large area at the same time, would be able to penetrate the defense net of the U.S. carrier battle groups.

In related news, Professor Lin Chong-pin of Tamkang University said that the some 1,400 missiles deployed in China's southeastern coast are actually aimed not at Taiwan, but U.S.

aircraft carriers that might sail into waters near Taiwan in an emergency situation.

Lin, who served as vice minister of defense from 2003-2004, said that there is no need for China to attack Taiwan with the missiles since the range of those missiles have been increased to 600-800 kilometers, far longer than the less than 200-mile distance between Taiwan and the opposite Chinese coast.

However, the Chinese missile deployment does pose a psychological threat to the people of Taiwan, Lin said.

(By Sophia Yeh & Bear Lee) Enditem/cs