Bush administration officials say they have been unable to get even the most basic diplomatic response from China after their detection of a successful test to destroy a satellite 10 days ago, and that they are uncertain whether China’s top leaders, including President Hu Jintao, were fully aware of the test or the reaction it would engender.

In interviews over the past two days, American officials with access to the intelligence on the test said the United States kept mum about it in hopes that China would come forth with an explanation.

It was more than a week before the intelligence leaked out: a Chinese missile had been launched and an aging weather satellite in its path, more than 800 km above earth, had been reduced to rubble. But protests filed by the United States, Japan, Canada and Australia, among others, were met with silence—and quizzical looks from officials in The Chinese Foreign Ministry, who seemed to be caught unaware.

In an interview late Friday, Stephen J Hadley, President Bush’s national security adviser, raised the possibility that China’s leaders might not have fully known what their military was doing.

“The question on something like this is, at what level in the Chinese government are people witting, and have they approved?” Hadley asked. He suggested that the diplomatic protests were intended, in part, to force Hu to give some clue about China’s intentions.

The threat to United States interests is clear: the test demonstrated that China could destroy American spy satellites in low-earth orbit (the very satellites that picked up the destruction of the Chinese weather satellite).

... contd.