Communism & China




Competing for China’s Love:  US Warns EU not to lift sanctions 
on China

by Sophia Barkat




Just recently, American Airlines and Continental Airlines won permission 
from the United States to begin passenger flights to China, the world's fastest
-growing major economy (See http://www.iht.com/). This, as President Bush
during his visit to Europe, urged the EU not to remove a weapons sales ban 
to China (See independent.co.uk/). On Feb. 23rd, 2005, President George 
Bush spoke about a "deep concern" in the US "that the transfer of weapons 
would be a transfer of technology to China, which would change the balance 
of relations between China and Taiwan," reports Stephen Castle for The 
Independent.


But what was behind this stance?  Is China-Taiwan balance of power really that 
much of a problem to the US? After all, the US, by doing business with China 
already helps to make China an economic super-power. China is the largest 
trading partner of the US. And the US has invested on average $9-12 billion in 
the Chinese economy, per year  (See "Historical Cost Basis" figures 
http://www.bea.gov/).  More so, it has consistently tipped the boat in favor
of China, even with arms sales. So, why badger Europe?




Clinton Administration & China


Since the US-Sino Accord was drawn up in 1985, both the nations have been 
pushing for closer ties, including sharing of nuclear technology:

"The 1985 Sino-U.S. agreement, negotiated by the Reagan administration between 1981 and 1984, authorizes sales of nuclear reactors, major reactor components and low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel (enriched to less than 20 percent uranium235). The accord was the first U.S. nuclear trade pact with a communist country and the
first bilateral agreement with another nuclear-weapon state," reported Jennifer Weeks, congressional defense staffer and an arms control lobbyist for the Union of Concerned Scientists from 1991-97. (See http://www.armscontrol.org/)

The Clinton Administration has been building on this accord, according to Weeks.
"Opening peaceful nuclear trade with China would further a number of the Clinton 
administration's foreign policy objectives. It would provide China with a positive 
incentive to continue tightening its nuclear non-proliferation policies and improving 
its export controls. Implementing the agreement would also allow U.S. companies 
to bid for contracts in China, one of the few strong growth markets worldwide for 
nuclear power. And if China takes certain steps to meet U.S. legal requirements 
for nuclear trade, such as joining the Zangger Committee for nuclear exports, it 
will become more tightly integrated into the international non-proliferation 
community," reports Weeks. "Congress approved the agreement in a qualified 
form, requiring the president to make several certifications to Congress before 
export licenses can be issued for the transfer of major nuclear technology and 
materials. No administration to date has been able to do so," she said.


If indeed the Congress has not approved of any nuclear transfers, then how 
might any take place?




The Los Alamos Hoopla: Espionage or Secret Transfers?


In 1999, the Clinton Administration announced that the People’s Republic of 
China (PRC) had been stealing US nuclear weapons technology. According to 
the Cox Report in Congress that looked into this event, the intelligence community's 
best estimate of what the PRC has obtained from the Los Alamos Laboratory:

• Late 1970s: Design information on the W-70 enhanced radiation warhead.
• 1984-1988: Design information on the W-88 warhead and its reentry vehicle.
• 1984-1988: Classified (but not design) information on reentry vehicles and weight-to-yield ratios of the W-62 (Minuteman II), W-76 (Trident C-4), W-78 (Minuteman III), and W-87 (Peacekeeper).

The explosive yield of the W-88 warhead is about 500 kilotons—some 30 times 
that of the weapons that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki (See 
http://www.armscontrol.org). 


Could the US Congress or White House have secretly authorized the deal? 
If it did, the Cox Report that followed a Congressional investigation put no 
blame on the US Government, creating instead suspicion about Chinese 
immigrants in the US: 

"It is extremely difficult to meet the challenge of the PRC's technology
acquisition efforts in the United States with traditional counter- intelligence techniques that were applied to the Soviet Union... The PRC employs all types of people, organizations, and collection operations to acquire sensitive technology: threats to national security can come from PRC scientists, students, business people, or bureaucrats, in addition to professional civilian and military intelligence operations." (See www.house.gov)

Jonathan D. Pollack, skeptical about the Cox Report, wrote in Arms 
Control Today: 

"To the uninitiated reader, the Cox Report presents an ominous
picture of pervasive, sustained Chinese espionage and illicit technology acquisition breathtaking in its scope, scale and effectiveness... In particular, it is almost totally devoid of reference to the political, military, intelligence, and dual-use technology ties with China assiduously pursued at the highest levels of the U.S. government during the 1970s and 1980s... From the very onset of
the Sino-U.S. relationship in the early 1970s, successive Republican and Democratic administrations believed that the enhancement of Chinese power —as a counterbalance to Soviet power—was in the national security interest of the United States, and persistently sought to advance this goal in the ensuing two decades." (See http://www.armscontrol.org)

Harold Agnew, who was director of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory at the time, 
confirmed that the technology was old. In a letter to The Wall Street Journal on 
May 17, 1999, he said, "The design of the W-88...is actually quite old. The basic 
test was done by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory when I was director, and I 
retired 20 years ago," shifting the technology back to the 70s. ( See 
www.armscontrol.org/)


Wolfgang Panowski, director emeritus of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center 
in California, also found the Cox Report to be laughable at best.  He said in Arms 
Control Today, "The report alleges that classified information on all of the most 
advanced U.S. thermonuclear weapons has been "stolen," but provides no 
evidence that actual documents containing detailed designs of U.S. nuclear 
weapons have been transmitted." (See http://www.armscontrol.org)




Recent Cover-ups?


So, why is Bush telling the Europeans not to lift sanctions on China? Have 
the more recent US Congress and White House Administrations given up the 
old program to enforce China militarily?


It would seem that three US companies were recently alleged to have been 
trying to sell military technology to the PRC, but cleared of these charges. 
Representative John M. Spratt, Jr., wrote in the April/May 1999 Issue of 
Arms Control Today :  

"It was initially alleged that U.S. encryption technology had been compromised when the Loral-built Intelsat 708 satellite crashed
shortly after launch. This rumor turned out to be unfounded. It was also
alleged that Motorola had helped the PRC design a platform for off-loading Iridium satellites that was a precursor to a post-boost vehicle for off-loading multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs). This too was unfounded. Finally, it was alleged that Hughes and Loral had helped the PRC improve the accuracy, range and payload capacity of its rockets and missiles. The committee investigated the launch failure investigations in detail, and concluded that China's rockets and missiles may have gained reliability as a result of transfers, but nothing to increase or improve range, payload capacity or accuracy. (See http://www.armscontrol.org/act/)

Were these secret decisions made in Congress or the White House or 
were the Congressional findings truthful?




News-flash: China’s Has It’s Own Technology!


According to Steve Garwin, China is not likely to use the same technology 
as the US. 

"China's current nuclear doctrine does not require the deployment
of large numbers of MIRVed missiles. The United States and Russia deployed thousands of highly accurate RVs in order to be able to destroy with some confidence hardened targets such as missile silos. China's deterrent doctrine requires simply the ability to destroy in a retaliatory strike a modest fraction of the population and industry of a potential enemy. Were China intent on developing a counter-force capability, it could long ago have increased its ICBM force beyond the 20 or so silo-based missiles that can now deliver warheads to the United States. It is likely therefore that the impetus behind the mobile ICBMs is (as the Cox Report implies) to make China's strategic nuclear force more survivable against nuclear attack by the United States...

Moreover, MIRVs are also not the optimal weapons if China anticipates encountering a U.S. national missile defense (NMD) system such as that currently proposed to protect all U.S. territory with hit-to-kill exo-atmospheric interceptors. Instead, China is far more likely to use effective countermeasures (such as light-weight decoy balloons) rather than multiple RVs on its future missiles." (See http://www.armscontrol.org/)

Recent Congressional Visit to China


In January 2005, Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA) led a Congressional trip to 
China. The Congressional delegation was given a tour of "Chinese military 
facilities, ports, and shipyards; met with Chinese and Korean diplomats 
and officials; met with the Chairman of the ROK National Assembly’s 
Defense Committee, the Korean counterpart to the House Armed Services 
Committee; observed Korea's demilitarized zone (DMZ), a narrow strip of 
land that separates Communist North Korea from the Republic of Korea; 
met with American entrepreneurs in China; and observe operations at Chinese 
teel mills," reports Forbes’ site.  (See http://www.house.gov/forbes/)


But apparently, the trip left Forbes worried. In a February 18, 2005 press 
release titled, "Looking through the long-range lens" he said: "Where we 
sit today, it is impossible to tell if China will become one of America’s 
greatest allies or one of America’s greatest enemies in the coming decade. 
We pray for an ally, but we must prepare for an enemy."  (See 
http://www.house.gov/forbes/). 


According to the Congressman’s site, the statement followed a 10-member 
January trip to China and Korea, including Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO), Rep. 
Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA), Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL), 
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC),Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN), Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), 
Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM), and Del. Madeleine Bordallo (D-GU). (See 
http://www.house.gov/forbes/


Skelton said pretty much the same thing: "The fundamental question posed 
by both sides was whether the United States will see China as a friend or as 
a threat in the years to come. Our countries have many common interests – 
trade, energy, and peace on the Korean Peninsula, to name a few – that we 
should build upon to make the potential for conflict less likely." (See 
http://www.house.gov/)


Question arises, however, how the delegation came to this conclusion. Forbes, 
incidentally, is Chairman of the "Modeling & Simulation Training Caucus" for the 
109th Congress, which showcases "M&S training initiatives of the military in a 
joint task force environment, promotes the M&S industry, and is forum to 
understand the importance of such training to the battlefield success," (See 
http://www.house.gov/forbes/). It is attended by the defense industry big names 
like Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, a unit of The Boeing Company and a 
$30.5 billion business in itself. With such big names to lobby for in the Congress, 
do people like Forbes have a motto to scare US-Taxpayers adequately and 
periodically?


After all, the US aerospace industry has invested $2-5 billion per year in direct 
investment abroad, between 1999 and 2003. (See http://www.bea.gov/). Would 
it be wrong to say that the defense lobby would have won by creating the 
appearance of tension between the US and China?




US-China-Taiwan Relations


In May 2004, the US Congress voted on an Amendment on Taiwan. H.R 4200, 
proposed by Representative Jim Ryun, requiring the Secretary of Defense to 
initiate senior officer official educational and training programs with Taiwan. 
Specifies that the exchanges would focus on the defense of Taiwan against a 
potential submarine attack and potential missile attack, and would also include 
activities related to civil-military relations, including parliamentary relations – 
namely by the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). (See 
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery)


Has this been all for show? Or is the US just using Taiwan to further the fear of 
China for it’s own gains?


According to Mel Gurtov and Byong-Moo Hwang, authors of "China’s Security: 
The New Roles of the Military" (1998), Japan and South Korea, along with the 
US and the ASEAN are the leading trade-partners of China. (Gurtov, Hwang pg. 
11). What's more, the authors report, "Taiwan, by the mid-1990s had become 
one of China’s major trade and investment partners, with Hong Kong as the 
principal conduit due to Taiwan’s official policy of "no contact" with the PRC." 
(Gurtov, Hwang pg. 69)


But why the "no contact" policy?


It would seem that the China-Taiwan tensions are just a show, one hyped by the 
US Media and used by the US Government to increase defense spending, and 
thus, fatten the pockets of the defense industry. Indeed, on February 24, 2005, 
Taiwan declared it would not rule out unification with mainland China. It also 
lifted a 56-year-old ban on direct passenger flights, so Taiwanese who work 
on the mainland could more easily go home for last month's Lunar New Year 
holiday, as many Taiwanese work in mainland China. (See http://news.yahoo.
com/news) 


As recent news of tension between China and Taiwan emerge in recent times
one, therefore, wonders if this is all part of the US defense industry shenanigans to
appropriate more wealth.

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