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“CHINA'S PROLIFERATION ACTIVITY” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S1920-S1922 on March 13, 1998.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
CHINA'S PROLIFERATION ACTIVITY
Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I rise today to address a rather disturbing article that appeared not only in the Washington Times but also in the Washington Post, a similar article. The headline in the Times says: ``China in New Nuclear Sales Effort.'' The headline in the Post: ``U.S. Action Stymied China Sale to Iran.''
These articles represent a concern of mine, because they detail China's continuing nuclear proliferation, not just nuclear proliferation, but proliferation to the nation of Iran.
According to these articles, U.S. intelligence discovered secret China-Iran negotiations concerning Chinese transfer of hundreds of tons of anhydrous hydrogen fluoride. Anhydrous hydrogen fluoride is a material used in enriching uranium to weapons grade uranium.
This transfer was scheduled to go to Iran's Isfahan Nuclear Research Center. The Isfahan Center is the principal site of Iran's efforts to manufacture the explosive core of an atomic device, according to the articles.
So what we have here, both in the Washington Post and in the Washington Times, is the chronicling of China's effort to send these kinds of components and processes to Iran in order for Iran, a rogue nation, to enhance its capacity to be involved with atomic weapons of mass destruction.
This revelation of new Chinese efforts to aid Iran's nuclear weapons program is deeply troubling, and it follows solemn commitments from Chinese leaders just last October that China would cut off nuclear assistance to Iran.
What is more troubling to me, however, is the fact that the Clinton administration has overlooked more than a decade of similar promises that have been broken just as quickly and routinely as last October's promise has now been revealed to have been broken on the face of the front pages of this city's newspapers.
This continued course by this administration to simply take at face value assurances consistent with other assurances and, unfortunately, consistent with the disregard for those assurances in terms of policy, causes us to question whether or not we should have been racing into these agreements, and particularly according to China the special standing which we have provided to China based on the events of last October.
It is pretty clear to me that, in spite of the fact that China assured us last October that they were going to be adopting a different posture in regard to nuclear proliferation, their policy and their practice was not altered. Their policy and practice of providing this kind of proliferation to rogue nations remains in place.
It is, unfortunately, not new that the Chinese have broken agreements. I will submit for the Record a list of events and times in which the Chinese have said one thing and done another in regard to nuclear proliferation--starting in 1981, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991, another incident in 1991, 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997.
Now, this list, which has been assembled by the Nuclear Control Institute, merely chronicles the habit, the practice, and the policy of China in saying one thing and doing another.
A number of us were stunned last year when the administration said it wanted to elevate the standing of China as it related to nuclear technology. We were stunned because we were aware of this list. We were stunned, thinking that if in the summer of 1997 our own CIA labels China as the world's worst proliferater of weapons of mass destruction, why would we 90 days later want to constitute them as a nuclear cooperator and enter into a nuclear agreement with them that would entitle them to higher levels of information, higher degrees of cooperation with the United States?
I will submit this list for the Record. I will not belabor the Senate with all of the documentation here, but I would like the list to be included in the Record and the documentation be available to the Senate and to the American people. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
CHINA'S NON-PROLIFERATION WORDS VS. CHINA'S NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION DEEDS*
[From the Nuclear Control Institute]
------------------------------------------------------------------------Date and what China said-- What China did--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1981--``Like many other peace- In 1981, China supplies South
loving countries, China does not Africa (at that time not a member
advocate or encourage nuclear of the NPT and pursuing a nuclear
proliferation, and we are weapons program) with 60 tons of
emphatically opposed to any unsafeguarded enriched uranium.
production of nuclear weapons by This enriched uranium may have
racists and expansionists such as enabled South Africa to triple
South Africa and Israel.''--Yu weapons-grade uranium output at
Peiwen, head of Chinese delegation the Valindaba facility.\1\ In
to Conference on Disarmament in 1981, other unsafeguarded Chinese
Geneva, Xinhua, 8/4/81. exports include highly enriched
uranium, uranium hexaflouride, and
heavy water to Argentina, and
heavy water to India. Both nations
are non-NPT states with nuclear
weapons programs at the time.\2\
1983--``China does not encourage or In 1983, China contracts with
support nuclear proliferation.''-- Algeria, then a non-NPT state, to
Vice Premier Li Peng, Xinhua, 10/ construct a large, unsafeguarded
18/83. plutonium-production reactor.
Construction of the reactor
complex began after November 1984--
well after China's April 1984
pledge to subject all future
nuclear exports to IAEA
safeguards, and while China is
negotiating a nuclear cooperation
agreement with the United
States.\3\ China also supplies
Algeria with large hot cells,
which can be used to handle highly
radioactive spent fuel to separate
plutonium.\4\
1984--``We are critical of the U.S. officials reveal that, in the
discriminatory treaty on the early 1980s, China provided
nonproliferation of nuclear Pakistan with the design for a
weapons, but we do not advocate or nuclear weapon, and probably
encourage nuclear proliferation. enough highly enriched uranium
We do not engage in nuclear (HEU) for one to two bombs.\5\
proliferation ourselves, nor do we
help other countries develop
nuclear weapons.''--Premier Zhao
Ziyang, White House state dinner
on 1/10/84, Xinhua, 1/11/84 (Note:
A U.S. official later said that
``These were solemn assurances
with in fact the force of law,''
AP, 6/15/84).
1985-86--``China has no intention, In addition to covering up its
either at the present or in the export of the unsafeguarded
future, to help non-nuclear reactor to Algeria, China secretly
countries develop nuclear sells Pakistan tritium, an element
weapons.''--Li Peng, Chinese Vice used in the trigger of hydrogen
Premier, Xinhua, January 18, 1985. bombs as well as to boost the
``The Chinese made it clear to us yield of fission weapons.\6\
that when they say they will not
assist other countries to
develop nuclear weapons, this
also applies to all nuclear
explosives . . . We are
satisfied that the
[nonproliferation] policies they
have adopted are consistent with
our own basic views.''--
Ambassador Richard Kennedy,
Department of State,
Congressional testimony, 10/9/85.
``Discussions with China that
have taken place since the
initialling of the proposed
[nuclear] Agreement have
contributed significantly to a
shared understanding with China
on what it means not to assist
other countries to acquire
nuclear explosives, and in
facilitating China's steps to
put all these new policies into
place. Thus, ACDA believes that
the statements of policy by
senior Chinese officials, as
clarified by these discussions,
represent a clear commitment not
to assist a non-nuclear-weapon
state in the acquisition of
nuclear explosives.''--ACDA,
``Nuclear Proliferation
Assessment Statement,''
submitted to Congress on 7/24/85
with the U.S./China Agreement
for Cooperation, 7/19/85.
``China is not a party to the
NPT, but its stance on the
question is clear-cut and above-
board . . . it stands for
nuclear disarmament and
disapproves of nuclear
proliferation . . . In recent
years, the Chinese Government
has more and more, time and
again reiterated that China
neither advocates nor encourages
nuclear proliferation, and its
cooperation with other countries
in the nuclear field is only for
peaceful purposes''.--Ambassador
Ho Qian Jiadong, speech given at
the Conference on Disarmament in
Geneva, 6/27/85 (quoted by Amb.
Richard Kennedy in congressional
testimony, 7/31/85).
1987-89--``China does not advocate In 1989, China agrees to build a
or encourage nuclear light-water reactor for Pakistan,
proliferation, nor does it help begins assisting Iran's
other countries develop nuclear development of indigenous
weapons.''--Vice Foreign Minister manufacturing capability for
Qian Qichen, Beijing Review, 3/30/ medium-range ballistic missiles,
87. and assists Iraq in the
``As everyone knows, China does manufacture of samarium-cobalt
not advocate nor encourage ring magnets for uranium-
nuclear proliferation. China enrichment centrifuges.\7\
does not engage in developing or
assisting other countries to
develop nuclear weapons.''--
Foreign Ministry spokesman,
Beijing radio, 5/4/89.
1990--``. . . the Chinese In September 1990, after Iraq's
government has consistently invasion of Kuwait and the
supported and participated in the imposition of an international
international community's efforts trade embargo, China provides Iraq
for preventing the proliferation with lithium hydride, a chemical
of nuclear weapons.''--Ambassador compound useful in both boosted-
Hou Zhitong, Xinhua, 4/1/91. fission and thermonuclear
(hydrogen) bombs, as well as in
ballistic missile fuel.\8\
1991--``The report claiming that Sometime around 1991, China
China provides medium-range provides ballistic missile
missiles for Pakistan is technology to Syria, including the
absolutely groundless. China does nuclear-capable M-9 missile. In
not stand for, encourage, or 1993, a Chinese corporation
engage itself in nuclear exports ammonium perchlorate, a
proliferation and does not aid missile fuel precursor, to the
other countries in developing Iraqi government via a Jordanian
nuclear weapons.''--Foreign purchasing agent.\9\ In August
ministry spokesman Wu Janmin, 1993, the United States imposes
Zhongguo Ximwen She, 4/25/91. sanctions on China for exporting
nuclear-capable M-11 ballistic
missiles to Pakistan.
1991--``China has struck no nuclear In 1991, China supplies Iran with a
deals with Iran . . . This research reactor capable of
inference is preposterous.'' producing plutonium \10\ and a
Chinese embassy official Chen calutron, a technology that can be
Guoqing, rebutting a claim that used to enrich uranium to weapons-
China had sold nuclear technology grade.\11\ (Calutrons enriched the
to Iran, letter to Washington uranium in the ``Little Boy'' bomb
Post, 7/2/91. that destroyed Hiroshima, and were
at the center of Saddam Hussein's
effort to develop an Iraqi nuclear
bomb.)
1994--``China does not engage in China supplies a complete nuclear
proliferation of weapons of mass fusion research reactor facility
destruction . . .''--Foreign to Iran, and provides technical
Minister Qian Qichen, AP newswire, assistance in making it
10/4/94. operational.\12\ China, with
apparent U.S. acquiescence, agrees
to replace France as supplier of
low-enriched uranium fuel for
India's U.S.-supplied Tarapur
reactors. The U.S. cut off supply
of LEU soon after India's nuclear
explosion of 1974. This LEU supply
makes it easier for India to
concentrate other nuclear assets
on its weapons program.\13\
1995--``China has never transferred In 1995, China exports 5,000 ring
or sold any nuclear technology or magnets to Pakistan. Such magnets
equipment to Pakistan . . . We are integral components of high-
therefore hope the U.S. Government speed gas centrifuges of the type
will not base its policy-making on used by Pakistan to enrich uranium
hearsay.''--Foreign Ministry to weapons-grade.\14\
Deputy Secretary Shen Guofang,
Hong Kong, AFP, 3/26/96 (after
discovery of the ring magnet sale
to Pakistan).
1996--``. . . We have absolutely In July 1997, a CIA report
binding assurances from the concludes that, in the second half
Chinese, which we consider a of 1996, ``China was the single
commitment on their part not to most important supplier of
export ring magnets or any other equipment and technology for
technologies to unsafeguarded weapons of mass destruction''
facilities . . . The negotiating worldwide.\15\ The report also
record is made up primarily of states that, for the period July
conversations, which were detailed to December 1996--i.e. after
and recorded, between U.S. and China's May 11, 1996 pledge to the
Chinese officials.''--Under United States not to provide
Secretary of State Peter Tarnoff, assistance to unsafeguarded
congressional testimony, 5/16/96. nuclear facilities--China was
``China's position on nuclear Pakistan's ``primary source of
proliferation is very clear . . nuclear-related equipment and
. It does not advocate, technology . . .'' \16\
encourage, or engage in nuclear
proliferation, nor does it
assist other countries in
developing nuclear weapons. It
always undertakes its
international legal obligations
of preventing nuclear
proliferation . . . China has
always been cautious and
responsible in handling its
nuclear exports and exports of
materials and facilities that
might lead to nuclear
proliferation.''--Statement by
Foreign Ministry spokesman Cui
Tiankai, Beijing, Xinhua, 9/15/
97.
1997--``The question of assurance According to a CIA report, China is
does not exist. China and Iran ``a key supplier'' of nuclear
currently do not have any nuclear technology to Iran, exporting over
cooperation . . . We do not sell $60 million worth annually.
nuclear weapons to any country or Fourteen Chinese nuclear experts
transfer related technology. This are reportedly working at Iranian
is our long-standing position, nuclear facilities.\17\
this policy is targeted at all
countries.'' Foreign Ministry
spokesman Shen Guofang, Los
Angeles, 11/2/97, Reuters, 11/3/97.
``I wish to emphasize once again
China has never transferred
nuclear weapons or relevant
technology to other countries,
including Iran . . . China has
never done it in the past, we do
not do it now, nor will we do it
in the future.''--Foreign
Ministry spokesman Shen Guofang,
Kyodo, 10/21/97.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
END NOTES
* China's non-proliferation statements are documented in Rep. Benjamin
Gilman, ``China's Nuclear Nonproliferation Promises: 1981-1997,''
Congressional Record, November 5, 1997, p. H10073. China's
proliferation deeds are documented in Steven Dolley, ``China's Record
of Proliferation Misbehavior,'' Nuclear Control Institute, September
29, 1997.
\1\ Leonard Spector, Nuclear Ambitions, 1990, p. 274; Michael Brenner,
``People's Republic of China,'' in International Nuclear Trade and
Nonproliferation, Ed. William Potter, 1990, p. 253.
\2\ Judith Miller, ``U.S. is Holding Up Peking Atom Talks,'' New York
Times, September 19, 1982; Brenner, ibid,; Gary Milhollin and Gerard
White, ``A New China Syndrome: Beijing's Atomic Bazaar,'' Washington
Post, May 12, 1991, p. C4.
\3\ Vipin Gupta, ``Algeria's Nuclear Ambitions,'' International Defense
Review, #4, 1992, pp. 329 330.
\4\ Mark Hibbs, ``Move to Block China Certification Doesn't Concern
Administration,'' Nucleonics Week, August 7, 1997, p. 11.
\5\ Leslie Gelb, ``Pakistan Link Perils U.S.-China Nuclear Pact,'' New
York Times, June 22, 1984, p. A1; Leonard Spector et al., Tracking
Nuclear Proliferation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
1995, p. 49.
\6\ Milhollin and White, ``A New China Syndrome,'' op cit., p. C4.
\7\ ``Iraq and the Bomb,'' MidEast Markets, December 11, 1989, p. 130.
\8\ Tim Kelsey, ``Chinese Arms Dealers Flaunt U.N. Embargo--China Ships
Vital Nuclear Cargo to Iraq,'' London Sunday Independent, September
30, 1990, reprinted in Congressional Record, October 18, 1990, p.
H10531.
\9\ Export Control News, December 30, 1994, p. 14.
\10\ Kenneth Timmerman, ``Tehran's A-Bomb Program Shows Startling
Progress,'' Washington Times, May 8, 1995. According to Timmerman,
China and Iran did not report the 1991 purchase of this reactor to the
IAEA.
\11\ Marie Colvin, ``Secret Iranian Plans for a Nuclear Bomb,'' Sunday
Times (London), July 28, 1991; Russell Watson, ``Merchants of Death,''
Newsweek, November 18, 1991, p. 38.
\12\ Gary Milhollin, Wisconsin Project, Testimony before the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence, September 18, 1997, p. 8.
\13\ Mark Hibbs, ``Reported VVER-1000 Sale to India Raises NSG Concern
on Safeguards,'' Nucleonics Week, January 12, 1995, p. 1.
\14\ Tim Weiner, ``Atom Arms Parts Sold to Pakistan by China, U.S.
Says,'' New York Times, February 8, 1996, p. A1.
\15\ U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Nonproliferation Center, ``The
Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and
Advanced Conventional Munitions,'' 1997, p. 5. See also Mark Hibbs,
``DOD, ACDA Want China Accord Link to Other Weapons Export Limits,''
Nucleonics Week, August 21, 1997, p. 2; Tim Weiner, ``China is Top
Supplier to Nations Seeking Powerful, Banned Arms,'' New York Times,
July 3, 1997, p. A10.
\16\ CIA report, ``The Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of
Mass Destruction,'' op cit., p. 5.
\17\ CIA report, ibid.; Con Coughlin, ``U.S. Sounds Alarm Over Iran
Nuclear Threat,'' Sunday Telegraph (London), February 23, 1997, p. 24.
Mr. ASHCROFT. Now, this most recent set of incidents, of course, revealed in the Washington Times today, and in the Washington Post as well, and I am sure in other newspapers across the country, was the subject of a special briefing to Members of the U.S. Senate very recently. I was not a part of that briefing and I do not know what was said at the special briefing, but the information that I am including is information from these news sources. I want to make it clear that I would not be breaching any special information provided to the Senate. I was not a party to it. But the information is well known.
What is perhaps in some measure troubling is that the administration sought to portray this episode with China as a success. They say,
``Look what we stopped. Look what we were able to do.'' They say that China responded more swiftly to our complaints this time, that when we caught them red-handed in the process of breaking their word, they were more ready to admit they were breaking their word. To hear administration officials talk, the swiftness of China's response to the exposure of their proliferation activity is grounds for disregarding that the administration was hoodwinked by the Chinese all along.
Well, the inventory since 1981 is sort of the litany, if you will, of the insistent and nagging record of proliferation violation after proliferation violation after proliferation violation upon proliferation violation. These things provided a basis for saying to the administration, we should not trust the Chinese, at least without some record, without some record that proliferation will stop, and yet within days after our CIA labeled the Chinese as the world's worst proliferaters, we in this administration seemed ready to believe their next assurance. And, of course, these newspapers indicate that our belief should have been in their practice and policy of the past, which has been a policy of betrayal and a policy of disregard, not a policy of compliance with agreements relating to nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.
Who knows what other nuclear assistance projects China has in store with Iran or other rogue regimes. Who knows how many such projects we have not detected, have not called their hand on, have not asked them to stop because we did not know about them. We happen to intercept information here.
Given China's past proliferation record, and given that the 1997 CIA report that called China--and I quote--``the most significant supplier of weapons of mass destruction-related goods and technology to foreign countries''--that was a quote; the CIA labeled them that less than a year ago--it is pretty clear that people of good sense would say, maybe we ought to ask that they be compliant, maybe we ought to ask that they observe their agreements for at least a short interval before we endow them with our full trust and confidence.
I opposed President Clinton's decision to begin nuclear cooperation with China based on the CIA report, based on this heritage of denying and breaking these agreements. And now the newspapers of this morning, from both the right and the left, if you will, have said that China was in the process of breaking these agreements currently after China has given its word.
In order for United States-China nuclear cooperation to proceed, the President certified to Congress that China--and this is what he certified--``is not assisting and will not assist any nonnuclear-weapon state, either directly or indirectly, in acquiring nuclear explosive devices or the material and components for such devices.''
The President's haste to make this certification seriously undermined U.S. counterproliferation credibility, credibility that would be desperately needed just a few weeks later in a confrontation with Saddam Hussein over the same issue of the threat of weapons of mass destruction--not a unique issue.
Mr. President, the startling inconsistencies in this administration's policy regarding the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, these inconsistencies are putting the national security of our country at risk. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright talks about NATO's new central mission as combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The United States almost went to war last month in the Persian Gulf over the threat of weapons of mass destruction.
We still face the prospect of having to use military force to address the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. And yet, in spite of all this, the administration's rhetoric on counterproliferation--in spite of the continuing object lesson of Saddam Hussein and the threat posed by his terrorist government--the Clinton administration has entered into a nuclear cooperation agreement with China, the world's worst proliferater of weapons of mass destruction. And we know, as of this week, that China is repudiating the basis of those agreements.
Just as Saddam Hussein has outmaneuvered this administration to keep his weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, China has outmaneuvered this administration to continue to proliferate weapons of mass destruction to Iran. Not only is Beijing continuing to pursue nuclear assistance to Iran, but, according to the CIA, China is a major supplier to Iran of chemical weapons and missiles technology as well.
I call on the President to put a halt to nuclear cooperation with China. The President, in my opinion, has pursued a policy of blind engagement with the Chinese. It is a policy which disregards the facts, the litany of breaches on the part of the Chinese. It disregards the facts of continuing breaches of their agreements by the Chinese who continue to proliferate weapons of mass destruction. In light of the reports on China's continuation of proliferation activity, the proposed United States-China summit meeting in June should be reconsidered.
Mr. President, the decision to begin nuclear cooperation with China was a political one. It was driven by the administration's desire to have a ``meaningful'' meeting, an event strategy. Well, ``meaningful'' events cannot replace substantive foreign policy. We cannot say in one part of the world to Saddam Hussein, ``Well, we'll go to war with you over weapons of mass destruction,'' while we are winking at someone else, saying, ``Well, it's OK if you continue to break your word and proliferate weapons of mass destruction'' to equally dangerous rogue regimes. It undermines America's credibility in combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It is not worth the photo-op that we get from the Chinese by having a summit if we have to destroy our policy and threaten the security of this globe to do it.
I believe that it is time for us to have a policy, a policy that is unmistakable and clear and a policy that is respected, that weapons of mass destruction are not to be tolerated and that the United States will not extend privileges of nuclear cooperation to those who would take nuclear resources and make them available to rogue nations as weapons of mass destruction.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 10 minutes has expired.
Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I yield the floor and thank the Chair.
Mr. GLENN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
____________________
