Beijing:
In a major new assessment of North Korea, US Defence Secretary Robert M Gates said on Tuesday that the country is becoming a direct threat to the United States and was within five years of developing a missile with the potential of hitting Alaska or the West Coast.
Mr. Gates said that although he expected North Korea's ability to be limited, he anticipated the country would still develop within that time frame a small number of intercontinental ballistic missiles that could at least potentially deliver nuclear warheads. "I don't think it's an immediate threat, but on the other hand I don't think it's a five-year threat,'" Mr. Gates said.
Mr. Gates made his comments during a visit to Beijing on the same day that China, in a show of force for the United States, conducted the first test flight of its new stealth fighter jet. The 15-minute flight occurred just hours before Mr. Gates met with President Hu Jintao to talk about improving relations between the Chinese and American militaries and ways to reduce tensions during a nascent arms buildup between the two countries.
In a development that stunned Mr. Gates and his entourage, a senior American defense official said that Mr. Hu and all other Chinese civilian officials in the meeting were unaware of the test flight when Mr. Gates raised it with the Chinese president. News of the flight of the radar-evading plane, the J-20, had been prominently posted on unofficial Chinese military Web sites a few hours before the meeting, raising serious concerns among the Americans that China's political leadership had lost some control over the country's military.
On North Korea, Mr. Gates' new assessment is a significant shift for the Obama administration, which until now has viewed Pyongyang as a proliferation threat, fearing that it might sell its existing missiles and nuclear devices to other countries, like Iran. But Mr. Gates changed that emphasis, which is likely to fuel a movement to expand a military base at Fort Greely, Alaska, armed with interceptor missiles designed to stop a North Korean missile before it hits the United States.
Implicit in Mr. Gates' five year assessment was the possibility that the North could soon solve one of its biggest technological hurdles: manufacturing a warhead small enough to fit atop a missile.
Exploding a nuclear device underground, which North Korea did in 2006 and again in 2009, is comparatively simple. Manufacturing a warhead that is light, small and reliable is a far more complex art.
It is unclear whether the North obtained designs for a warhead from an outside country - especially Pakistan, which sold it uranium enrichment equipment. Designing such a warhead from scratch is difficult, as Iran has learned.
On the Chinese stealth jet fighter flight, Mr. Gates said he directly asked Mr. Hu why it was conducted during his trip to Beijing. Mr. Hu replied, Mr. Gates said, that it "had absolutely nothing to do with my visit.'' Asked if he truly believed that, Mr. Gates said yes, but acknowledged he had questions about whether the Chinese military was acting independently of the political leadership. "I've had concerns about this over time,'' Mr. Gates said.
A Hong Kong-based expert on the Chinese military, Andrei Chang, said in a telephone interview that the Chinese stealth fighter flew for about 15 minutes over an airfield in the southwestern city of Chengdu. Photos of the jet in flight were also posted on unofficial Chinese military Web sites and on a computer bulletin board run by Global Times, a state-run newspaper known for its hawkish positions.
The Chinese first rolled out the plane last week, in what was regarded as a tough-minded welcome to Mr. Gates, who reacted by dousing the spectacle. In comments to reporters on his plane en route to Beijing he questioned "just how stealthy" the Chinese fighter jet is.
The test flight apparently had been scheduled for last Thursday, when a large crowd of officials at the Chengdu airfield of the city's Aviation Design Institute, but was unexpectedly abandoned after the plane began taxiing down the runway, Mr. Chang said last week. The reason for the apparent cancellation was not clear. Bad weather appeared to have delayed test flights until Tuesday's takeoff.
Mr. Gates met with Mr. Hu as a precursor to the Chinese leader's talks with President Obama at the White House next week, which Chinese officials are described as eager to make a success.
As China's increasingly assertive and rapidly modernizing military challenges the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, Pentagon officials have repeatedly pushed the Chinese military to be more open about its intent and its weapons. Chinese military experts noted that in terms of transparency, at least the J-20 test flight was held in the open.