China policy experts, participating in a Heritage Foundation panel discussion, said the erratic fashion in which China has handled crises in its past -- including domestic unrest, the outbreak of SARS and a 50-year-old standoff with Taiwan -- makes it difficult to predict how China will react in future crises.

But one constant in China's crisis management through the years has been the Chinese Communist Party's top priority of staying in power -- an approach that endangers China's citizens and other nations, the panelists said.

The focus on China's unpredictability under stress throws into sharp relief long-standing concerns from some quarters of the national security establishment, especially about the growth of the People's Liberation Army, the world's largest military force.

The modernization of the Chinese military, with a recent double-digit increase in its budget, has not escaped notice. In a speech in Singapore in June, Rumsfeld questioned the rationale for the increase, saying, "No nation threatens China."

China's joint military exercises with Russia in August have not helped matters, raising fears of a Sino-Russian military axis.

The ambiguity surrounding China's military intentions is characteristic of the communist regime's lack of transparency and presents a paradox, according to Andrew Scobell, research professor of national security at the Strategic Studies Institute.

"In the modern era, China has never been so secure -- in terms of having no obvious countries on its borders threatening it -- and yet China's leaders continue to feel insecure," Scobell said at the panel discussion.

That insecurity is evident in the secretive and, at times, ambivalent way China has handled crises in the past, experts said.

During the outbreak in 2003 of SARS -- Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome -- the Chinese government employed a strategy of "deception and denial" for five months before international pressure forced them to respond in a meaningful way, according to Col. Susan Puska, a former adviser to the U.S. State Department.

The party leadership in Beijing withheld information or spread disinformation to cover up the magnitude of the SARS epidemic, according to Puska's chapter in a book released last week, Chinese National Security Decision-Making Under Stress. In the case of a contagious disease, a response like China's has international implications, Puska said, noting that SARS also caused economic upheaval throughout the Far East.

China's unwillingness to protect its citizens during SARS, which was anticipated to be a large-scale health crisis, was a result of the party power structure trying to protect itself instead, according to Puska.

"One of the main issues I think was demonstrated is that, from the local level of the (party) all the way up to the top, there is this top priority on preserving Chinese communist power. It's power politics," Puska said. "Consequently, even in the midst of a health crisis, they will act in ways that may be counterproductive to empirically pursuing a problem such as a health issue."

China suffers from "paralysis" in times of crisis, with different factions within the CCP advocating different responses, said Larry Wortzel, a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

The Tiananmen Square crisis in June 1989 -- which ended when the Chinese military shot and killed hundreds of student protesters in Beijing's central public space -- showed the party's ambivalence during an internal crisis, according to Wortzel.

While some party leaders encouraged protesters to demonstrate to seek reforms, others "hated any sort of unrest and the consequence of that," he said.

Despite Chinese citizens seeking more accountability from their government in recent years, Wortzel said the lack of public discourse in China means the government's response to a future crisis is likely to remain the same. Speaking out against the party will continue to result in imprisonment or death, he said.

"I don't have a lot of hope for really good crisis management and decision-making," Wortzel said.

In addition, party leaders rarely offer information to the outside world in times of crisis, which sends unclear and sometimes threatening messages to other nations, experts said.

China's buildup of ballistic missiles in the Taiwan Strait may send a message to the Taiwanese government that a declaration of independence will not be tolerated. But it also poses a clear threat to U.S. military installations in the region, said Richard Fisher, an analyst with the International Assessment and Strategy Center.

"Anybody who maintains an arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles and regional missiles that are aimed at American bases has to be considered a threat at some level," Fisher said in a phone interview last week.

Puska and Scobell, however, said China is "legitimately entitled" to build-up its military capacities -- something they say is often overlooked.

During Rumsfeld's visit to China, better communication between the U.S. and China should be high on the defense secretary's priority list, according to Wortzel.

"Hopefully he'll open up some lines of communication and talk about this thing," Wortzel said.

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