China bares nuclear teeth

CHINA served notice on Tuesday that inscrutability, albeit in a

Chairman Mao bunnet, is still alive and well and surviving in a

bomb-proof bunker somewhere near Lop Nor.

Western analysts are now trying to fathom why Beijing chose to

detonate a nuclear warhead at its traditional underground test centre in

the desert wastes of Xinjiang province in defiance of an unwritten ban

by 20 nations.

It is a move which prompted US President Bill Clinton to threaten the

cancellation of America's three-month-old moratorium on testing and

raises the spectre of renewed Russian interest in updating that unstable

nation's atomic arsenal.

Until last year, all major nuclear powers regularly tested warheads

under controlled conditions. The US has carried out 900 such tests,

mainly in the Nevada desert, where British nuclear weapons are also

detonated to gauge ''safety and reliability''.

The hidden agenda behind the experiments is that everyone with the

necessary technology is constantly seeking to miniaturise warhead size

without losing destructive effect. In the fairly exclusive nuclear club,

small is beautiful.

The process by which atomic weapons are set off, involving a small

conventional explosion before the nuclear chain reaction, also has to be

tried out at intervals. Warheads from stock were formerly selected at

random to ensure that they were still operational, and had not exceeded

their shelf life.

US surveillance satellites detected Chinese preparations at Lop Nor as

long ago as September 17. But appeals for restraint have been ignored by

a Communist leadership incensed by what it sees as Western interference

in its domestic affairs over human rights issues.

There must also be the question of a veiled warning to Russia, a

country only a few hours into the aftermath of a failed hardline coup

when seismographs spiked around the world and a section of Chinese

desert dropped into the familiar concave footprint of an underground

blast.

China's paranoia about Moscow's intentions should not be

underestimated. Beijing spent four decades under the shadow of the

Soviet nuclear threat. Tensions between the two superpowers led to armed

clashes on the Ussuri River in the late 1960s and unconfirmed reports of

Soviet use of chemical weapons against Chinese troops.

Even when the fledgeling Chinese nuclear programme began to produce

the first crude warheads, there was always the danger that the Soviets

would launch a pre-emptive strike to neutralise Lop Nor.

China's strategy during more than 20 years of confrontation was to

brace herself to absorb an atomic pounding, and to trade ground and

lives for time and attrition in the event of a Soviet ground attack.

The likelihood of nuclear conflict diminished with the growth of her

own arsenal, and by the late 1980s, some rapport had been re-established

between the two estranged regimes.

But, like the West, China must now be looking at a Russia riven by

economic turmoil, and teetering periodically on the brink of outright

civil war. It is also a Russia that retains control over 30,000 nuclear

warheads. Those factors make an unsettling combination.

One of Nato's recurring nightmares is that a rebel military commander

will hijack missiles, or initiate a strike against political enemies.

Worse, in a country strapped for cash, an atomic auction with Islamic

fundamentalist militants as successful bidders has the potential for

catastrophe on a global scale.

By the complex nature of Chinese reasoning, Tuesday's explosion may

also have been a demonstration of capability aimed at a resurgent and

increasingly right-wing Japan.

Despite a constitution which forbids military involvement abroad, or

the possession of nuclear weapons, Japan has the technology to construct

warheads if she chooses to do so. She is also a growing military power

in Asia.

More than one Pacific nation has glanced uneasily over its shoulder

towards the home islands in the last decade. Tokyo's economic domination

of the region is already almost total, and China is a ripe and untapped

market, as well as a prime source of raw materials.

With US defence spending cuts, Japan's strategic importance is set to

increase in direct ratio to American force withdrawals. The huge naval

presence in the Philippines has already gone, and the commitment to

South Korea has been reduced.

Closer to home, the implications of an end to the test moratorium in

the US would allow the UK to try out a new warhead for the Trident

submarine system due to come into service early in 1995.

It would also allow the RAF to press its case for an air-launched

stand-off weapon known as TASM, the tactical, air-to-surface missile.

The last Defence White Paper earlier this year fudged the issue of

whether the project would go ahead largely because test facilities were

no longer available.

At the moment, Britain's nuclear stockpile stands at about 200

warheads, the lowest total since the 1960s. It is set to rise to almost

300 by the end of the century as Trident boats become operational, and

warheads are built for its missiles.

The Royal Navy currently has about 100 Polaris warheads to equip the

three ageing Resolution-class boats still in service, and its strike

aircraft share access to a further 100 WE177B free-fall nuclear bombs

with the RAF's Tornado strike squadrons. The naval version is configured

as a depth charge capable of destroying fast-moving, deep-diving

ex-Soviet submarines.

The Defence Ministry has said that the replacement Trident submarine

fleet will carry no more than 128 warheads, and some missiles may be

equipped with a single, tactical warhead in the sub-strategic role.

These weapons are now in production, and are due for delivery when the

HMS Vanguard, the first of the class, enters service.

The last of the US-supplied tactical warheads held by UK forces,

including depth-bombs for the Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft based at

St Mawgan, Cornwall, and Kinloss, Grampian, a regiment of 12 Lance

missile launchers in Germany, and atomic shells for four Royal Artillery

gunner regiments, were withdrawn in July last year.

President Clinton declared his 15-month moratorium on further testing

in the face of opposition from his own military and the British. They

argued, and have continued to argue, that safety and reliability could

be compromised unless tests are conducted at regular intervals.

But Clinton has been leading international efforts to conclude a

multinational agreement on a complete worldwide test ban by 1996. China

has already agreed to sign if all of the other recognised nuclear powers

do likewise.

Officially, there are only six nations with nuclear capability. They

are the US, Russia, the Ukraine, France, China, and the UK.

Unofficially, Israel has a stockpile of warheads, Pakistan and India are

suspected of having such weapons, South Africa has announced that it

destroyed its own secret cache, and Brazil, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea

are all known to be working towards possession of atomic firepower.

China's motives for upsetting progress towards a test ban treaty

remain something of a mystery. The most likely reason is political

nose-thumbing in response to allegations about civil rights. Or perhaps

Beijing is simply browned off at the rejection of its bid to host the

2000 Olympics.