Most newspapers reported Thursday's revelations on the front page, although the reports were not accompanied by any commentaries or editorials.

``China has mastered the technology for a neutron bomb,'' said the Beijing Youth daily, echoing headlines across the press.

However none of the newspapers clearly explained what exactly a neutron bomb can do, and what strategic value such a bomb would have for China.

The country's official television was also restrained in its coverage of the affair, giving just a short space to comments by Chinese government spokesman Zhao Qizheng on the subject.

The more official newspapers such as the People's Daily and Beijing Daily playeddown the neutron bomb issue and devoted most of their coverage to the government's official 45-page rebuttal of US allegations that it stole nuclear secrets.

It wasin the rebuttal released on Thursday that China said for the first time that its scientists had mastered the technology to make a neutron bomb.

Analysts said the announcement held few surprises but the revelation raised questions about Beijing's motives for publicly discussing its highly secret nuclear programme.

On its face, the 25,000-word statement released by Beijing was intended to refute US charges that it stole US nuclear secrets.

It asserted that Chinese scientists mastered design technology for neutron bombs and miniaturised warheads on their own.

But did China also intend the statement as an indirect warning to Taiwan and the United States?

Beijing is furious with Taiwan's President Lee Teng-hui for affirming Taipei's sovereignty in comments Saturday, and the official disclosures about its nuclear cap abilities may have meant to be read as a reminder that China is a nuclear power and not to be trifled with. US analysts did not rule that out Thursday, but said they did not believe that isthe likely motive.

Evan Medeiros, a China expert with the Monterey Institute for International Studies in California, said it would have taken the Chinese leadership longer than five days to coordinate and approve a public statement on the sensitive subject of nuclear capabilities.

``Why are they doing it now?'' Medeiros said. ``My guess is simply as a response to the Cox report.''

Representative Christopher Cox headed the congressional panel that leveled charges of nuclear theft at China in a report April 27.

The report's finding that US weapons labs had been penetrated by a successful 20-year Chinese espionage campaign ignited a political storm in Washington.

The Chinese rebuttal to the report may have been an attempt to clear the Air politically before the start of negotiations on Chinese membership in the World Trade Organisation (WTO), said Alexander Lennon, an analyst with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies here.

In any event, the United States has long known about Beijing'sdevelopment of a neutron bomb and its efforts to build smaller warheads for a new generation of road -- mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Designed to kill people but leave buildings intact, the neutron bomb was tested by China in 1988.

The purpose of the bomb then was to stop a mass invasion of Russian troops into China, said Medeiros. Today, he said, it's of questionable military value.

``The US is not going to engage in a ground war in China,'' he said.