Spy photos show Beijing set for
underground test
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
China is preparing to conduct a small, underground
nuclear test in the midst of a standoff with the United States
over the detention of 24 American military personnel, The
Washington Times has learned.
U.S. intelligence officials said
the EP-3E surveillance aircraft that
collided with a Chinese interceptor
jet April 1 was gathering electronic
intelligence related to the
impending test, along with other
intelligence targets.
The test preparations were
detected two weeks ago at
China's Lop Nur testing facility in
western Xinjiang province. They
were based on U.S. spy satellite
photographs that showed activity
related to nuclear testing at one location of the testing site.
One official said the underground blast could be another in
a series of "subcritical" nuclear tests — small explosions that
do not produce an actual nuclear yield but are useful in
weapons development and maintenance.
However, other officials familiar with intelligence reports
said the Chinese are known to have a covert testing program
that relies on small, or low-yield, nuclear explosions.
In 1996, China became a signatory to an international
treaty banning all underground nuclear blasts.
U.S. intelligence officials said suspicions about the secret
Chinese nuclear testing program were confirmed after agents
from Beijing purchased special nuclear containment
equipment from Russia several years ago.
The special equipment is known to be used in masking the
seismic signatures of nuclear explosions — like the small blast
China set off June 1999, days before a senior U.S. diplomat
delivered an apology to Beijing for the mistaken bombing of
the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, during the air
war there.
The timing of that test, which took place at Lop Nur, was
viewed as an intentional signal from Beijing, which had cut off
all military contacts with the United States and had begun
vitriolic attacks on the United States in the
government-controlled media.
Although the test preparations were spotted before the
showdown between China and the United States began,
officials did not rule out a connection to China's stepped-up
aggressive harassment of U.S. intelligence and plans for the
test.
China is opposing Bush administration plans for U.S. arms
sales to Taiwan and plans for deployment of a national missile
defense, and it has been engaged in a concerted effort to
influence U.S. policies, said defense and intelligence officials.
A test during the current standoff would signal China's
growing nuclear power, said the officials.
A U.S. defense official said the testing activity at the
current time is a sign that China's leader, President Jiang
Zemin, may not be fully in control.
"Some say Jiang is a moderate who wants good relations
with the United States," the official said. "If that's the case,
this test during a difficult period with the United States
indicates he is not in control of China."
The EP-3E conducts signals intelligence operations that
are aimed at collecting large amounts of communications and
other electric signals. The aircraft left from Kadena Air Base
on Okinawa, Japan, and flew south along the Chinese coast
until its encounter with two Chinese interceptor jets near
Hainan Island.
The aircraft's sensitive listening equipment is capable of
picking up communications thousands of miles inland,
including any signals from Lop Nur, the main Chinese nuclear
testing facility, intelligence officials said.
The U.S. intelligence community also uses RC-135
reconnaissance flights and spy satellites to collect intelligence
from Lop Nur. It also has "sniffer" aircraft that can detect any
nuclear particles produced from nuclear tests after they take
place.
China in the past has used tests of its missiles and nuclear
weapons as political signals to the United States.
China is currently engaged in a major strategic weapons
buildup. Last year, it conducted two flight tests of a new
road-mobile long-range missile known as the DF-31.
China also is building a longer-range missile known as the
DF-41 and a new class of ballistic missile submarine that will
be equipped with a naval version of the DF-31.
China last conducted large-scale nuclear tests in 1996. It
announced later that year it was agreeing to the international
nuclear test ban known as the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty.
U.S. intelligence agencies assessed the 1996 tests to be
the first blasts of a new small warhead — believed based on
the design of the W-88, the United States' most advanced
small nuclear warhead, obtained through espionage.
Although China signed the test ban treaty, it has not
ratified it.
The U.S. Senate rejected the pact in 1999. The State
Department said at the time of the Senate debate that U.S.
ratification of the treaty would "constrain" China's nuclear
weapons modernization because any information on U.S.
nuclear testing obtained by Chinese spies could not be used
without first conducting nuclear tests.
"China is not likely to rely on weapons incorporating
information obtained through espionage without first
conducting nuclear explosive tests," the department said in a
1999 fact sheet.
The fact sheet also stated that China said when it signed
the test ban treaty in 1996 that "it would continue to evaluate
the safety and reliability of its nuclear weapons. . . . We
believe that China has initiated such a program at its Lop Nur
test site."
China has refused to permit international monitoring at its
nuclear weapons test facilities —a key reason Senate
Republicans rejected the test ban treaty as unverifiable.
Negotiators failed to include provisions in the treaty that
would allow precise monitoring near Lop Nur.
Despite the Senate's rejection of the treaty, the Bush
administration is seeking $21 million for international
monitoring of the defunct treaty, a sign treaty proponents are
operating outside the control of administration political
appointees.
"It's the Clinton bureaucracy doing this, and it shows the
Bush administration hasn't reined them in," said one U.S.
official.
The continued nuclear test efforts by China show "China
could never be a reliable treaty partner" since it announced in
1996 that it would no longer test, this official said. |
