Bush seeks to reassure China on shipment

Bush seeks to reassure China on shipment

By Kathrin Hille in Taipei, Richard McGregor in Beijing and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington

Published: March 26 2008 18:48 | Last updated: March 26 2008 23:03

President George W. Bush on Wednesday reassured Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, that a US shipment of nuclear missile components to Taiwan in 2006 was a “mistake”.

Stephen Hadley, the White House national security adviser, said Mr Bush made the comments to Mr Hu in a phone call on Wednesday morning. The Pentagon on Tuesday said the US had mistakenly sent electrical fuses for intercontinental ballistic missiles, instead of a consignment of helicopter batteries.

Taiwan on Wednesday disputed initial Pentagon claims that it had only informed the US about the mistaken shipment this January. Lisa Chi, a Taiwanese military spokeswoman, said Taipei informed the Pentagon immediately after receiving the shipment in August 2006.

“We put the shipment in classified storage and notified our US counterparts immediately,” said Ms Chi.

A senior Bush administration official on Wednesday confirmed the Taiwanese account, blaming the original discrepancy on “logistics, logistics, logistics”, in a reference to the Defence Logistics Agency, which is responsible for shipping weapons. He said Taiwan had informed the DLA that the shipment did not contain the helicopter batteries.

A person familiar with the investigation later on Wednesday said the Pentagon now believed Taiwan had first raised concerns in January 2007.

After initially assuming that Taiwan had received the wrong kind of batteries, the Pentagon last week understood that the shipment had actually contained nose cones housing the fuse for a Minuteman nuclear missile.

The official said the DLA appeared to have mislabelled the container at some point, which contributed to the error. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has launched an investigation.

The erroneous shipment is the second major embarrassment for the Pentagon on nuclear weapons safeguards in the past year. Last year, a B-52 bomber mistakenly carried nuclear cruise missiles across the US without officials realising the warheads were missing from their warehouse.

The latest incident also prompted an angry reaction on Wednesday from Beijing, which considers Taiwan a renegade province. Qin Gang, a foreign ministry spokesman, said Beijing was “deeply concerned and strongly unsatisfied” with the Pentagon disclosure.

“We have raised solemn representations to the US, requiring them to thoroughly investigate the issue and notify the Chinese government as soon as possible in detail about the facts of the situation,” he said.

The US notified China before publicly disclosing the incident.

According to Taiwan, more than a year of communication with the Pentagon ensued, during which the US at one point told the island to dispose of the shipment.

“Only after they realised how serious the error was did they change their mind,” said Wu Wei-rong, head of the armaments bureau.

Taiwan said US officials identified the contents of the four boxes as missile fuses last week and the shipment was returned on Tuesday.