The Administration says the system would Japan and South Korea from North Korean missiles, but Taiwan's Government has shown interest in being part of the system, an interest the Administration has not . The Chinese have the recent push on the theater missile defense system as hostile to their interests. A Pentagon official suggested that this was hardly surprising, since the system would affect the "heart of their military posture." The coming of a Pentagon report on the system, requested last year by Congress, is likely to heighten the debate. The Chinese have already raised the issue in a way that does not please the Administration. During a visit to Washington in January, a senior Chinese arms control official, Sha Zukang, warned the Administration that pushing ahead with the missile system would sink any chance of China's joining a major international mechanism for controlling the spread of missile technology, the Missile Technology Control Regime. Nations that belong to the are bound not to export missile parts. Sha made the warning at the same at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace where Berger announced that Washington would like China to join the control regime this year. From the Administration's point of view, the brightest picture for achieving some progress with the Chinese in time for the Prime Minister's visit to be paving the way for China's entry to the World Trade Organization. China to make concessions so it can join the world's most important trade organization has been the focus of Clinton's efforts in the last three years to open China economically and politically. But Western economists that this is one of the most inopportune times to be moving China toward the trade group.
appears assert conference defense discouraged interpreted protect regime release Urging
[R16] Hopes for Inproved Ties with China Fade(5) - Gap-Fill Exercise. Refer to words box at bottom
