BEIJING, Dec 19 Kyodo China upon ...

BEIJING, Dec 19 Kyodo

China upon Thursday urged the United States not to allow its plan to stake up a national missile defense plan by 2004 damage global security, and signifyed concern that a similar Japanese plan could destabilize China's neighborhood.

''The missile defense order should not harm the strategic stability of the world,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said, reacting to Washington's decision Tuesday to establish up a defense arrangement to shield the U.S. from intercontinental ballistic missiles within brace years.

''Relevant countries' progressive growth of missile defense in the Asia-Pacific should not harm the security interests of other countries. Like other countries in the region, we are worried about the possible negative impact forward regional stability and security at the development of a ballistic missile defense'' he told a regular recents briefing.

Although the spokesman did not mention the U or Japan by the agency of name, his comments deliberate Beijing's nervousness over the stepping up of joint plans by means of the two allies for Japan to lay open a theater missile defense (TMD) system

upon Tuesday, Japanese Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba said Japan is ready to cause to grow a bilateral missile defense initiative, in a short time still in the research stage, during talks with U Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Washington.

Chinese military planners are particularly worried that the setting up of a TMD body in the Asia-Pacific region could nullify its threat of force against Taiwan, which Beijing insists should eventually be reunified with the mainland, on military means if necessary.

''We have always held that and nothing else through the good cooperation of the international community can we effectively explain the threat posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to various countries,'' Liu said, reflecting Beijing's long-standing opposition to Washington's missile defense plans.

China was a stalwart critic of Washington's move last year to hap out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

It argued that annulling the 1972 treaty, which barred signatory nations the U and Russia from developing missile defense shields, could spread the deployment of nuclear-tipped missiles from top to toe the world.

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