WASHINGTON, April 22 — After a Chinese interceptor smashed into a target satellite in January, Bush administration officials criticized the test as a destabilizing development.

It was the first successful demonstration of an antisatellite missile by any country in more than 20 years. Pentagon officials warned that the test had increased the threat to American satellites. Space experts fretted that it had spawned a cloud of orbiting debris. American diplomats complained to their counterparts in Beijing.

What administration officials did not say is that as the Chinese were preparing to launch their antisatellite weapon, American intelligence agencies had issued reports about the preparations being made at the Songlin test facility. In high-level discussions, senior Bush administration officials debated how to respond and even began to draft a protest, but ultimately decided to say nothing to Beijing until after the test...

“Had the United States been willing to discuss the military use of space with the Chinese in Geneva, that might have been enough to dissuade them from going through with it,” said Jeffrey G. Lewis, an arms control expert at the New America Foundation...

Mr. Lewis of the New America Foundation said that the United States might have persuaded the Chinese to defer the test, short of meeting their demand for a ban on space weapons.

“The Bush administration watched them conduct two earlier tests and did not say a word,” he said. “Then they issued a National Space Policy that talked about freedom of action and denying adversaries access to space. The Chinese probably concluded that we were in no position to complain about their test.”

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