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An ICBM commands respect

China joined the exclusive club of ICBM powers last week. Two unarmed Long March 3 missiles lifted off from the remote Xinjiang region and traveled some 6,000 miles to a target zone near the Solomon Islands in the Pacific. There, a flotilla of 18 Chinese tracking ships was joined by kibitzing vessels from the U.S., the U.S.S.R., France, New Zealand and Australia. The observers took note of the successful splashdowns with a healthy respect.

The needle-nosed, liquid-propelled rocket--known in the West as the CSS-X-4, for China surface-to-surface experimental No. 4--is relatively crude. But it showed that China intends to allocate scarce resources to hold its own in what it calls "a world in great turmoil." Said Vice Premier Li Xiannian: "Our tests are aimed at strengthening China's defense against the hegemonist powers."

Stated more bluntly, the test proved China's ability for the first time to deliver nuclear warheads to any point in the Soviet Union, not to mention Europe or the western U.S. This point was emphatically made on the Soviets, though their press studiously ignored the missile firings. As for Western military analysts, they quickly laid to rest a cocky old gag to the effect that the Chinese would launch a missile when a group of Shanghai acrobats leaped from the top of the Great Wall onto a teeter-totter. The strike potential of the CSS-X-4, primitive or not, was clearly a serious matter. qed

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