US intelligence agencies, said the Washington Times, reported secretly within the government last week that the initial flight test of the DF-31 ICBM would take place in December.

``Some US officials,'' said the paper, ``Are concerned it could be part of a new campaign of intimidation by Beijing against Taiwan.'' Parliamentary elections are scheduled for December five on the island of Taiwan, which China regards as a breakaway province.

``The Chinese,'' a Pentagon official told the paper, ``Have indicated they will do something around the time of the Taiwan elections. We don't know what it is.''

The DF-31, expected to have a range of 8,000 km, was photographed recently at the Wuzhai missile and space centre.

Satellite photographs taken withinthe past several weeks over a Chinese testing facility revealed increased test preparations of the new ICBM, the Washington Times

said.

A report on Chinese missile activity at Wuzhai, said the Wasington Times, was circulated among senior US government officials last week.

According to the officials, the DF-31 is the first chinese ICBM capable of being moved on roads. Only Russia now operates road-mobile long-range missiles, the SS-25s, which are extremely effective strategic weapons because they can be moved easily and fired quickly.

Deployment of the DF-31 is expected to be around 2002 depending on the outcome of the testing, the paper said.

The new missile will use solid fuel, which makes it capable of being launched within minutes. It also will be equiped with a ``second generation'' thermonuclear warhead with a yield of about 500 kilotonnes, or 500,000 tonnes of TNT, US officials said.

The Washington Times

raised the issue of the test during a briefing for its editors and reportersby Chinese ambassador to the US Li Zhaoxing, and he said Beijing was ``as open with the United Nations about its weapons and military programmes as any other world power''.

The Washington Times

said China ``rarely, if ever'', makes public information about its strategic nuclear weapons programmes, which have been undergoing a steady modernisation from older, liquid-fueled missiles to highly-accurate mobile ICBM's.

Besides the DF-31, China is building a missile with a range of up to 12,800 km that is known as the DF-41. It also is working on conventional and nuclear cruise missiles.

A CIA report earlier this year, the paper noted, said that 13 of 18 Chinese long range nuclear missiles were targeted at the US.

The report, said the paper, contradicted President Bill Clinton's often-used phrase that there were no nuclear missiles aimed at the US.

A 1996 report by the air force's national air intelligence centre in Ohio said the DF-31 would ``narrow the gap between current Chinese, US and Russianballistic missile designs.''

The centre said, in a report labelled `secret', that the DF-31 ``will give China a major strike capability that will be difficult to counterattack at any stage of its operation, from pre-flight mobile operations through terminal flight phases.''

``Road-mobility will greatly improve Chinese nuclear ballistic missile survivability and will complicate the task of defeating the Chinese threat,'' it added.