The Associated Press
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991124/aponline235245_000.htm)

BEIJING –– The United States has no good reason to include Japan in an anti-missile defense system, a senior Chinese arms control official was quoted as saying Thursday.

Sha Zukang, director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in an interview with the state-run Xinhua News Agency that Japan faced no threat from North Korea or other countries.

North Korea rattled the region by firing a missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean last year. The North recently shelved its plan to test-fire a more powerful missile after talks with the United States in October. But Sha argued "the so-called threat from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to Japan is just a pretext."

He also said Japan faced no threats from other countries because its relations with Russia had improved.

The White House, with the support of Congress, is developing a limited national missile defense, or NMD, that could be deployed as early as 2005. It also researching a theater missile defense system, or TMD, with Japan.

China opposes both systems, saying they could spark a costly and dangerous arms race. It fears TMD technology could be passed to Taiwan, allowing the island to defend itself against Chinese missiles. Although the two sides have been ruled separately for decades, Beijing views Taiwan as a province that must be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.

China claims its nuclear weapons are for defense only and has pledged never to use them first. It strongly opposes a U.S. effort to amend the Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems treaty to allow for the development of a missile defense.

Washington wants to revise the 1972 ABM Treaty in order to build a defense system to protect against missiles from small rogue states.

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