Digging the Silos

When orbiting satellites recently transmitted a batch of aerial photographs of China, U.S. intelligence experts quickly detected something new. A number of small holes showed up on the photos, and the analysts figured that they were almost surely "soft" sites for missiles. Their conclusion: Peking is ready to begin deploying medium-range ballistic missiles.

There is no solid evidence that any missiles have actually been placed on launchers. Nonetheless, if Pentagon forecasts prove correct, Peking could have a force of 80 to 100 MRBMs, with ranges of 1,000 or more miles and 20-kiloton warheads (Hiroshima size) imbedded deep in Chinese soil by the mid-1970s. The missiles would be no threat to the U.S., but they would be within reach of Peking's Asian neighbors, notably the Soviet Far East.

Pad Problems. China's move to deploy a missile force under the command of its secrecy-shrouded Second Artillery Corps has come much later than outside experts originally expected. The Chinese successfully fired a nuclear-tipped missile with a range of up to 700 miles from their Shuangchengtzu test site in 1966, but after that, all they hit were problems--with guidance systems, with warhead miniaturization and with the Cultural Revolution. The program picked up again as the Cultural Revolution waned and as bloody battles with Soviet border forces began to break out along the Ussuri River in 1969. Last year's launching of a 381-lb. satellite, which could, among other things, broadcast a spirited rendition of The East Is Red, was ample evidence that most practical and political problems had been overcome--at least as far as MRBMs were concerned.

What remains uncertain is what Peking really wants for the estimated $1.5 billion a year (around 2% of China's gross national product) that it spends on missiles and warheads. Pads for testing medium-and intermediate-range missiles have been built at Huhehot, the capital city of Inner Mongolia, and at a new site in the mountains of Manchuria's Kirin Province, from which IRBMs can be fired over a 2,000-mile range to barren Sinkiang Province. But there are no signs that China is even ready to test a full-blown intercontinental ballistic missile, which would have to be lofted over a 6,000-mile range into the Indian Ocean.

Peking has earnestly courted Tanzania, which may be called upon to provide sites for Chinese range-monitoring stations and a base for a Chinese missile-recovery ship. But where are the ICBMs? The delay may be rooted in difficulties with ICBM technology, or in building ICBM launch pads at Shuangchengtzu, the high (4,000 ft.), sandy plain near the Mongolian border that remains China's main missile-test complex. Then again, the Chinese may have decided simply to stick with their relatively cheap MRBMs, which can hit cities like Vladivostok and Irkutsk, and thus would be sufficient to make the Russians think twice about sending troops across the Ussuri, or even hurling their own ICBMs at Peking. In any case, a Chinese ICBM force big enough to give Peking a creditable threat against Russia (which has more than 1,400 ICBMs) or the U.S. (1,054) is impossibly far off. Even if an ICBM were to be fired successfully this week, it would be 1975 or 1976 before China could have a force of 10 to 25 missiles deployed.

Going Slow. Understandably the Chinese insist that they are not interested in matching the superpowers' missile programs. According to one Asian analyst, Peking is "more than 20 years behind the Soviets and the Americans--and the gap might expand." Besides, China is wary of alarming the Soviets, who keep an eye on China with spy satellites, among other things, and have hinted frequently at a pre-emptive strike if Peking makes any menacing moves. In the meantime, intelligence experts report that the Chinese are working hard on producing TU-16 medium bombers (from Soviet plans obtained before the Sino-Soviet split) and developing nuclear submarines.

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