Panel Says Chinese Arms Used U.S. Data
By Juliet Eilperin and Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, May 25, 1999; Page A01
A House select committee concludes in a long-awaited report that China has stolen design secrets on the United States' most advanced thermonuclear weapons and used them to help develop miniaturized warheads and a new mobile intercontinental ballistic missile that
could be tested this year.
The 700-page document, adopted unanimously by a panel of five Republicans and four Democrats headed by Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.), also concludes that penetration of U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories by Chinese spies probably continues to this day as part
of a massive Chinese effort to steal or purchase U.S. military technology, according to a review of the report.
The report, which is scheduled for release on Capitol Hill this morning, has been at the center of a year-long Republican-led attack on President Clinton's China policy, including charges that, in part because of security lapses, the Chinese military has obtained
ultrasecret data whose loss has undercut U.S. national security.
The inquiry was undertaken originally on a suggestion from then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) that a committee investigate whether contributions to the Democrats' 1996 campaign influenced the administration's regulation of exports of sensitive
military-related technology to China. The committee ultimately decided not to pursue that suspicion, focusing instead on the export controls themselves and on signs of espionage at national nuclear weapons laboratories.
The committee's findings on Chinese espionage at the weapons labs, leaked earlier this year, triggered rancorous debate over the past three months and will almost surely have important repercussions on U.S.-China relations. Renewal of China's "most favored nation" trade status is expected to come before Congress as early as next month, and
congressional opposition could help delay or forestall China's admission to the World Trade Organization.
With nine congressional committees now investigating China's alleged theft of nuclear secrets, leading Republicans have blasted Clinton for playing down evidence of Chinese spying to protect his policy of engaging the Chinese and fostering trade in satellites,
computers and other sensitive dual-use technology that, his critics charge, has harmed national security.
Clinton's top aides flatly deny the charge. Clinton moved to bolster security and counterintelligence at the weapons labs 15 months ago and already has agreed to implement virtually all of the committee's 38 recommendations calling for further upgrades in security and heightened export controls, administration officials said.
Many of the Cox committee's most explosive findings regarding China's theft of nuclear secrets and acquisition of sensitive U.S. military technology and supercomputers have appeared in the media since the panel finished its massive, secret report at the end of last
year, triggering an extensive declassification process involving the White House, the Department of Energy and the intelligence community.
But the report, in its detail, is rich with new findings. Chief among them is the fact that a secret 1988 Chinese document obtained by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1995 that triggered the Los Alamos National Laboratory espionage investigation was provided by a
double agent under the direction of Chinese intelligence.
The committee cites a CIA conclusion that nonetheless the document contained classified U.S. thermonuclear warhead design information and other technical information on U.S. nuclear weapons. The CIA, in its own review of Chinese espionage, said it was unable to
determine how much of the information China stole from the United States, how much it obtained from open sources and what impact it had on Chinese warhead design advances.
The Cox committee's report also includes an intriguing reference to China's further theft of classified thermonuclear weapons information, possibly from a weapons laboratory, in the mid-1990s. But it states that the Clinton administration determined that further disclosure could hamper a criminal probe still underway.
As for stolen U.S. military technology, the committee reports that China has stolen guidance technology now being used in U.S. missiles and fighter aircraft, including the F-14, F-15, F-16 and F-117 fighter jets. The committee concludes that this guidance
technology is of enormous value to China in its development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and short-range CSS-6 missiles, which China test-fired over Taiwan's main ports in 1996.
The committee, which began its probe last July by focusing on missile and satellite technology transfers, concludes that U.S. satellite manufacturers, without obtaining required U.S. government licenses, gave China missile design information that enabled Chinese engineers to improve the reliability of Chinese rockets used for commercial and
military purposes.
The committee concludes that Hughes Electronics Corp. and Loral Space & Communications passed sensitive technical information to China as part of a 1996 investigation into the failure of a Chinese Long March rocket carrying a Loral-built commercial satellite without an export license, even though both companies knew they needed a license.
Hughes and Loral have denied wrongdoing through spokesmen, and neither firm has been charged with a criminal violation. A Hughes spokesman said yesterday that neither firm
transferred any sensitive data to the Chinese in 1996.
Loral's chief executive officer, Bernard Schwartz, was the Democratic Party's largest single donor in 1996. C. Michael Armstrong, Hughes's chief executive from 1994 to 1997, strongly lobbied for the Clinton administration's March 1996 transfer of licensing authority
over commercial satellites from the State Department, known for its focus on national security concerns, to the Commerce Department, with its emphasis on promoting U.S. exports.
Administration officials, who fought to keep highly sensitive intelligence conclusions out of the report, fault the Cox committee for consistently using worst-case scenarios in assessing the impact of Chinese espionage and technology acquisition. One senior
administration official said he strongly disagreed with the committee's conclusion that stolen U.S. nuclear secrets gave China thermonuclear design information on a par with the
United States.
washingtonpost.com |
