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By Peter Grier
In 1992, US intelligence
agencies started to become concerned about China's
designs for its next-generation nuclear weapons. A
series of explosions monitored by the West suggested
that the People's Republic of China was working on
smaller, lighter thermonuclear warheads, with an increased
yield-to-weight ratio. US officials did not think Chinese
science was advanced enough to produce such sophisticated
weapons on its own. They suspected something else-that
the PRC had stolen US nuclear secrets.
Three years later the US received apparent confirmation
of such thefts from the Chinese themselves. An unsolicited
Chinese individual--a "walk-in," in the argot
of espionage--turned a pile of PRC documents over to
the CIA. Among them was a paper stamped "secret" which
contained design information on perhaps the most advanced
warhead in the US arsenal, the Trident II's W88.
Since then, the CIA has come to believe that the walk-in
was a plant, someone who in fact worked for PRC intelligence.
The US conclusion is that China, for some reason known
only to its own top officials, had decided to flash
a glimpse of its stolen knowledge in front of US eyes.
If that is the case, it could turn out to have been
a colossal misjudgment. The recent report of a special
House panel, chaired by Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.),
on Chinese espionage has detailed years of systematic
PRC spying, outraging many members of Congress. It
might well have an impact on the relationship between
Washington and Beijing for years to come.
That US companies, through their own laxity or greed,
may have speeded the loss of secrets is faint comfort
to Washington. China has obtained everything from US
nuclear data to crucial help in missile upgrades and
US computers and machine tools far more powerful than
domestic Chinese models.
Many of the details alluded to in the House report
remain classified and beyond public view. In general,
however, purloined US technology and data could allow
the Chinese to produce state-of-the-art nuclear weapons,
upgrade their combat aircraft and submarines, conduct
more extensive and effective anti-submarine warfare,
equalize battlefields via information warfare, and
improve their command-and-control capabilities, according
to the Congressional study.
"The PRC seeks foreign military technology as
part of its efforts to place the PRC at the forefront
of nations," concludes the House Select Committee
on US National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns
with the People's Republic of China report-more simply
called the Cox report. "The PRC's long-run geopolitical
goals include incorporating Taiwan into the PRC and
becoming the primary power in Asia."
Use of Western military technology obtained under
questionable circumstances is not new for China, of
course. Its current arsenal of CSS-4 nuclear-tipped
ICBMs traces its design lineage to the US Titan ICBMs
of the 1950s, thanks to CSS-4 lead designer Qian Xuesen,
who worked on the Titan program.
A Chinese citizen educated in the US during the Japanese
occupation of China, Qian became one of the world's
top experts on jet propulsion during World War II.
After earning a PhD at the California Institute of
Technology and then working with a Cal Tech rocket
research group, he was recruited to join the US military's
long-range missile programs. He received a direct commission
to colonel in the US Army Air Forces and began work
on what became the Titan. However, spy allegations
dogged Qian, and eventually he lost his security clearances.
Negotiations between the US and the PRC resulted in
his return to China in 1955. After serving as chief
project manager in all PRC ballistic missile programs,
he became head of the government arm responsible for
all aeronautics and missile development research.
Theft and Diversion
Today, China uses what US intelligence calls a "mosaic" approach
to the collection of technical data, which takes small
bits of information collected by many individuals,
then pieces them together in the PRC.
Classic spying remains a major part of this approach.
Witness the case of Peter Lee, a Taiwanese-born, naturalized
US citizen who worked at US national laboratories until
evidence of espionage surfaced. In 1997, Lee passed
China classified US developmental research on very
sensitive detection techniques that could be used to
threaten previously invulnerable US nuclear subs, alleges
the Cox report. In 1985, Lee passed to China data about
the use of lasers to create nuclear explosions on a
miniature scale.
Mosaic intelligence also takes advantage of the relative
openness of US society. PRC nationals attend US universities,
host foreign scientific delegations, and pump visiting
scientists for information that is on the edge of classified.
The PRC also gets valuable bits from open forums such
as arms exhibits and computer shows.
The report alleges that, at one recent international
arms exhibit, PRC nationals were seen videotaping every
static display and collecting all possible brochures.
When a contractor left his booth unattended, Chinese
spies stole a display videocassette that had been playing
continual information on the US Theater High Altitude
Area Defense system, a theater missile defense program.
"Converting the stolen cassette to a frame-by-frame
sequence could yield valuable intelligence information
to the PRC," says the select committee report.
Simple purchase of equipment plays a part in PRC intelligence
gathering. Chinese front companies take advantage of
US military downsizing to buy surplus high-tech US
military goods, including some that are proscribed
from export to all but close allies.
Two years ago, the US Customs Service seized more
than $36 million in excess military property being
shipped overseas illegally. Among the goods bound for
the PRC and Hong Kong were 37 inertial navigation units
for F-117 and FB-111 aircraft, Patriot missile parts,
500 electron tubes used in the F-14 fighter, and 26,000
encryption devices.
Military goods that find their way to the PRC can
be reverse-engineered, or copied, for indigenous models.
Thus the PRC's C-801 anti-ship cruise missile is thought
to be a copy of the French Exocet anti-ship cruise
missile. The Chinese Z-11 helicopter is a reverse-engineered
French Aerospatiale AS-350 Ecureuil, according to the
Cox report.
Because of the decentralized nature of the Chinese
collection effort, Washington finds it very difficult
to track, according to the report. It adds that, because
of the FBI's historic focus on the Soviet Union during
the decades of the Cold War, the US has never made
monitoring the PRC's acquisition activities a priority.
"There is little or no coordination within the
US government of counterintelligence that is conducted
against the PRC-directed efforts to acquire sensitive
US technology," concludes the Cox report.
Nuclear Weapons
It is in the area of nuclear weaponry that this lack
of spy defenses may have hurt the US the most.
China has focused espionage activities on the relatively
open environment of the US national labs for decades,
according to the report of the select panel. The penetration "almost
certainly continues today," claims the study.
Impetus for the PRC effort came following the end
of the domestic chaos of the Cultural Revolution in
1976, when military planners sat back and assessed
the state of their atomic weapons. PRC warheads of
the late 1970s were large, multimegaton devices comparable
to US technology of the 1950s. Officials may have decided
that it was time to move to more advanced warheads
and a new generation of ballistic missiles.
Over the years, the Chinese made major moves on American
national laboratories located at Los Alamos and Sandia,
N.M., Livermore, Calif., and Oak Ridge, Tenn. The effort
evidently yielded the PRC a trove of stolen secrets.
The Cox report says the Chinese obtained classified
information on every currently deployed US Intercontinental
Ballistic Missile and Submarine-Launched Ballistic
Missile. Details remain classified, but the study says
the warheads on which the PRC obtained information
include the W56 warhead for the Minuteman II; the W62
for the Minuteman III; the W76 Trident C-4 SLBM, the
W78 Minuteman III Mark 12A ICBM; the W87 Peacekeeper
ICBM; the W88 Trident D-5 SLBM; and the W70 Lance short-range
ballistic missile.
In 1996, US intelligence reported that China had stolen
technology for the neutron bomb, which is intended
to maximize radiation damage while reducing heat and
blast. Such a weapon would be a useful tool if its
possessor wished to wipe out human defenders but occupy
the battlefield following conflict and avoid inflicting
destruction on the area.
The PRC has also stolen data on weapons design concepts,
on weaponization features, and on re-entry vehicles-the
hardened shells which protect warheads during their
plunge back into the atmosphere.
It may have obtained classified nuclear weapons computer
codes. Theft of the so-called legacy computer codes,
such as those used in development of the W88 Trident
warhead, would fill in gaps in Chinese knowledge about
how advanced thermonuclear devices perform when exploded.
To successfully produce a W88-like weapon, the PRC
may need dynamic, three-dimensional data on warhead
packaging, primary and secondary coupling, and the
chemical interactions of materials inside the warhead
over time, according to the Cox report.
Specifics on the leaked codes remain largely classified.
However, the House report confirms China acquired the
MCNPT code, which is useful in determining a system's
ability to survive electronic penetration; the DOT3.5
code, which performs similar calculations in a different
manner; and the NJOYC code, which acts as a translator
between the two other codes.
In the mid-1990s, US intelligence officials learned
that China had acquired US technical information about
insensitive high explosives. Conventional explosives
are the first step in the chain reaction which leads
to an atomic blast; insensitive high explosives are
safer for use on mobile missiles. Such material can
be dropped, struck, or even shot with a bullet but
still not detonate.
The House Select Committee believes that the PRC theft
of US secrets indicates that China will soon follow
the US lead and move toward a nuclear force that is
heavily reliant on lightweight, mobile, innovative
nuclear weapons.
China is already known to be developing several new
solid-propellant mobile ICBMs. The road-mobile DF-31,
for instance, is likely to undergo first flight tests
in 1999 and may be deployed as early as 2002, according
to House data. The warhead for this smaller weapon
would likely use elements of the US W70 or W88.
Chinese engineers may not be able to precisely match
the sophistication of US warheads, but the difficulties
they face in bending the US information to their own
use are surmountable, according to the Cox report.
"Work-arounds exist, using processes similar
to those developed or available in a modern aerospace
or precision guided munitions industry," says
the House study. "The PRC possesses these capabilities
already."
The deployment of a new generation of thermonuclear
warheads by China could prove strategically troublesome
for the US.
For one thing, smaller, more efficient designs could allow the PRC to deploy
missiles tipped with Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle warheads.
The Chinese have frequently expressed opposition to US deployment of ballistic
missile defenses, and MIRVs might allow the Chinese to put heavy stress on,
or possibly break through, such a shield.
In addition, smaller, lighter warheads might allow
China to extend the range of their SLBMs, enabling
them to strike the US from distant Pacific waters.
Finally, China might not be the only nation that gets
to take a peek at the secret US data. "The PRC
is one of the world's leading proliferators of weapons
technologies," says the Cox study. "Concerns
about the impact of the PRC's thefts of US thermonuclear
warhead design information, therefore, include the
possible proliferation of the world's most sophisticated
nuclear weapons technology to nations hostile to the
United States."
High Performance Computers
US nuclear secrets are of little use to Chinese scientists
unless they have access to modern computers. And the
House Select Committee judges that High Performance
Computer equipment recently acquired from the US represents
a major leap forward in China's computing power.
In recent years, US export controls on HPCs have steadily
relaxed. As a result, China now has more than 600 USorigin
HPCs, estimates the Cox report. Three years ago, they
had none.
Furthermore, "the Select Committee judges that
the PRC has been using High Performance Computers for
nuclear weapons applications," says the report.
High Performance Computers-defined as systems able
to perform 1,500 to 40,000 MTOPS (Millions of Theoretical
Operations Per Second)--have a wide array of legitimate
civilian applications. They are useful in everything
from financial market transactions and credit analysis
to weather prediction and petrochemical research.
They are also essential building blocks of modern
weapon design. Everything from nuclear weapons to anti-submarine
warfare systems and command-and-control installations
benefit from HPC power.
To keep HPCs from being used for military purposes,
the Commerce Department controls their export. In general,
the sale of HPCs with a performance level of greater
than 2,000 MTOPS to nations other than reliable US
allies requires some degree of Commerce scrutiny and/or
licensing.
Under a law passed by Congress in the Fiscal 1998
defense authorization bill, Commerce is supposed to
perform post-shipment verifications on all exports
of HPCs with greater than 2,000 MTOPS to so-called
Tier 3 nations, including China, Vietnam, and nations
of the former Soviet Union.
China has long resisted any such inspections of purchased
US technology, however. A June 1998 US-PRC agreement
on end-use checks holds that China will consider requests
for such inspections to be nonbinding. If inspections
are carried out, they will be conducted by one of the
PRC's own ministries.
"The Select Committee has reviewed the terms
of the US-PRC agreement and found them wholly inadequate," says
the Cox report.
At the time the House report was written, only one
post-shipment verification had actually taken place.
Yet Commerce and Defense Department data indicate that
US HPCs have been obtained by Chinese organizations
involved in the research and development of missiles,
submarines, aircraft, communications, and microwave
and laser sensors.
US companies have at times abetted such technology
diversion. Compaq Computer paid a $55,000 civil penalty
in 1997 to settle alleged charges that it had shipped
equipment to the PRC without obtaining the proper export
licenses. Digital Creations Corp. of New Jersey pleaded
guilty to criminal charges that it had shipped a computer
to China without the required license and was sentenced
in 1997 to pay a criminal fine of $800,000.
The Select Committee believes that China is particularly
interested in acquiring the kind of computer power
needed for the simulation of nuclear blasts. As a signer
of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the PRC can no
longer legally conduct actual tests to judge the performance
of weapons. Yet HPC performance in the millions of
MTOPS is needed for adequate computer modeling of aging
nukes.
"For this reason, the Select Committee judges
that the PRC is almost certain to use US HPCs to perform
nuclear weapons applications," says the report.
Inhofe Pierces Administration "Smoke
Screen"
Ever since the Chinese espionage
scandal erupted, harsh criticism has been falling
on the Clinton Administration's team of national
security advisors-and the President personally.
Their foes in Congress and the media accuse
them of incompetence, inattention, poor judgment,
and playing low politics with the nation's
defenses.
Few if any critics have been as fierce or well-informed as Sen. James
Inhofe (ROkla.), member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Inhofe's view: "This President and this Administration are singularly
culpable for orchestrating a politically inspired cover-up [of Chinese
spying] in order to advance policies they knew were causing harm to US
national security."
Inhofe dismisses as a "smoke screen" the White House's suggestions
that most of the cases occurred long ago and that all recent Presidents
are equally culpable.
"Sixteen of the 17 most significant major technology breaches ... were discovered
after 1994," charged Inhofe, citing data uncovered by a Congressional panel
led by Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.). "The notion that Presidents Carter,
Reagan, and Bush knew the extent to which China's efforts to steal US nuclear
and military technology were successful is fantasy."
In a recent statement posted on his Senate Internet site, Inhofe went
on to say, "At least eight (and maybe more) of these breaches actually
occurred after 1994. ... Among these breaches--occurring on the Clinton
watch--are many of those that go the farthest in advancing China's potential
as a direct nuclear threat to the United States."
According to Inhofe, the eight breaches are:
- Transfer of so-called legacy
codes containing data on 50 years of US nuclear
weapons development, entailing more than
1,000 nuclear tests.
- Sale and diversion to military
use of some 600 High Performance Computers,
enabling China to enhance its development
of nuclear weapons, missiles, and advanced
aviation equipment.
- Compromise of nuclear warhead
simulation technology, thus enhancing China's
ability to perfect miniature nuclear warheads
without actual testing.
- Compromise of advanced electromagnetic
weapons technology useful in the development
of anti-satellite and anti-missile systems.
- Transfer of missile nosecone
technology that enables China to substantially
improve reliability of its ICBMs.
- Transfer of missile guidance
technology enabling China to substantially
improve the accuracy of its ballistic missiles.
- Compromise of supersecret
space-based radar technology, which would
give China the ability to detect our previously
undetectable submerged submarines.
- Compromise of some other "classified
thermonuclear weapons information" which "the
Clinton Administration ... has determined
... cannot be made public."
Inhofe is especially incensed
at the way that President Clinton's national
security advisor, Sandy Berger, has cast his
role in the infamous W88 nuclear warhead case.
China's theft of the design of the W88 miniaturized
warhead happened in the 1980s and was discovered
in 1995. It was an "enormously significant" event,
said Inhofe. However, Berger claims he didn't
tell the President about the theft until perhaps
as late as early 1998.
"The idea that Sandy Berger, ... who was fully briefed about the W88 technology
breach in April 1996, did not immediately communicate this information to the
President is preposterous," said Inhofe.
Inhofe went on, "The President had to have known about the W88 breach
no later than April 1996, well before the 1996 election. The President
deliberately withheld this vital national security information from key
members of Congress for obvious political reasons. He withheld it for
almost three years-a cover-up that is nothing less than a scandal of
gigantic proportions."
Inhofe charges that the underlying source of Administration action was
the desire to maintain close relations--especially trade relations--with
China.
"Notra Trulock, the Energy Department's former director of intelligence
who had first briefed Berger in April 1996, testified [that] he was prepared
to brief members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees as late as July
1998 but was denied permission to do so by acting Energy Secretary Elizabeth
Moler, a political appointee. Moler reportedly ordered Trulock not to conduct
the briefing because she said the information would be used to hurt Clinton's
China policy." |
Satellite Launches
Today's global market in space launch services is
brutally competitive. China serves the same position
in this market as it does for many consumer goods:
It is the low-cost option. Its bids sometimes come
in at half the price of Western launch firms, but it
is not the high-quality option. PRC boosters have been
known to veer off course and slam into nearby mountainsides,
with disastrous results.
In general, the Cox report casts doubt on the wisdom
of allowing US firms to put their satellites on Chinese
rockets. The reason is that the boosters used are closely
related to the PRC's military ballistic missiles. Launches
financed by US firms and foreign agencies inevitably
have given China the opportunity to refine booster
reliability. In addition, US satellites are poorly
guarded once they arrive in the PRC and present a tempting
espionage target.
To bolster its point that the Chinese military benefits
from civilian launches, the Cox report examines two
cases in which US contractors may have skirted export
restrictions to improve PRC boosters.
These companies--Hughes and Loral--were worried about
the fate of their own satellites. Hughes Space and
Communications, for instance, attempted in 1992 and
1995 to launch communications satellites on Chinese
Long March rockets. Both satellites were lost when
their launch vehicles exploded.
An internal Hughes investigation located the problem
as being the Long March's hammerhead fairing-a sheath
that protects the satellite as the rocket roars into
orbit and then splits away as the payload is pushed
into space. US engineers believed that the rivets that
held the fairing together were not strong enough. They
also thought the shape was slightly off and was vulnerable
to strong winds during ascent.
The Chinese did not want to hear these points, at
least not at first. They were very reluctant to admit
fault in their boosters. However, commercial insurers
were reluctant to back more Hughes launches in China
unless changes were made. So Hughes conveyed their
findings to the Chinese in a formal manner, and eventually
the Long March 2E fairing was improved through such
measures as an increase in the nose cap attachment
screws.
Fairings are not necessary with single-warhead ICBMs.
But multiple-warhead missiles use them to shroud re-entry
vehicles, and the knowledge Hughes conveyed to China
could help speed their development of MIRVs, believes
the House Select Committee.
There is evidence that US government officials improperly
approved at least some of the fairing discussions between
the US firm and the PRC. Committee members allege,
however, that Hughes knew that transferring the knowledge
in question required additional review by the State
Department.
"Hughes deliberately acted without the required
State Department license," says the Cox report.
Loral was similarly worried about the reliability
of the Long March rocket. On Feb. 15, 1996, a Loral
Space Systems Intelsat 708 satellite was destroyed
when a PRC booster tipped over even before it cleared
the launch tower. The rocket crashed into a nearby
hillside after 22 seconds of flight, devastating a
village and killing upwards of 100 people, by some
estimates.
A Chinese probe concluded that the spectacular accident
was caused by a broken wire within the inner frame
of the guidance system's Inertial Measurement Unit.
Loral engineers thought that explanation did not come
close to explaining the rocket's wild behavior. A Loral
review pointed to two other possible causes: the IMU's
follow-up frame or an open loop in the feedback path
of the guidance system.
Loral faxed the report to the PRC in May 1996 without
prior review by any US government authority, charges
the Cox committee. China eventually concluded that
Loral was right, and that the IMU follow-up frame had
failed.
Improvements in the reliability of the Long March
guidance system hurts US security because it is one
of the candidates for use in the PRC's next-generation
DF-31 ICBM, says the House Select Committee. Though
not accurate enough to allow more than targeting of
cities, the system is lightweight and compact.
One major danger in these technology transfers is
simply that China has learned much about Western diagnostic
processes, according to the Cox study.
"This exposure could improve the PRC's pre- and
postflight failure analysis for their ballistic missile
programs," says an interagency review team formed
to answer questions about the Long March. "This,
in turn, could increase the PRC's future ballistic
missile reliability."
It is also possible that China has gleaned valuable
technical information from the mere presence of USbuilt
civilian satellites at Chinese launch sites. US firms
are responsible for launch site security in the PRC,
but buildings in which the satellites are prepared
have numerous security weak points, from underground
steam pipe tunnels to large unlocked window areas and
paper door seals which can be peeled off, undetected,
when cold.
Private US guards aren't exactly the epitome of professionalism,
either. They routinely arrive for work drunk and then
go to sleep, charges the Cox report. Trips to town
to meet prostitutes are common.
The hunt for hookers became so intense at one point
that a Defense Department monitor was approached by
a PRC official who told him that one of the guards
had been soliciting prostitutes in front of the local
police department.
In another incident, a guard pulled a table out of
line of sight of a video surveillance camera, to use
it as a bed. Since the table blocked the room's door,
the Defense Department monitor called the room to have
it moved back. The guard reportedly responded that
he was "not in the furniture moving business."
One guard even reported for work carrying a sleeping
bag, charges the Cox study.
Technology Transfer
Espionage is not the only way the PRC obtains technological
secrets. It also buys them, by relentlessly scouring
the West for civilian items that may have military
uses.
US law theoretically blocks sale of dual-use technology.
However, determining what can and cannot be sold to
the PRC is a difficult process, made harder by the
PRC use of numerous front companies and long-term investments
in Western firms.
Some efforts are rebuffed. In 1990, the PRC tried to advance its cruise missile
program by buying the Williams FJ44 civil jet engine. This compact turbofan
was derived from the power plant for the US Tomahawk, so the purchase was denied.
Others succeed. In 1993, a PRC company joint venturing
with McDonnell Douglas to produce civilian airliners
was allowed to buy 19 advanced US machine tools for
its manufacturing plant. There were warning signs--the
number of airliners to be built in China was cut by
50 percent, for example--but McDonnell Douglas insisted
the tools were necessary for the PRC plant, so the
Commerce Department approved the deal.
Two years later, McDonnell Douglas reported that six
of the tools had been diverted to a factory that made
military aircraft and cruise missiles, as well as commercial
products.
Some attempted PRC purchases resulted in changes in
US policy. In 1991, the Commerce Department decided
to decontrol a popular series of civilian jet engines
manufactured by AlliedSignal's Garrett Engine Division,
the Garrett TFE-731. That meant that the engines could
be exported without a license or US government review.
The PRC quickly began negotiating with AlliedSignal
over terms of a coproduction deal. Reportedly, the
Chinese motivation was the need for a reliable engine
for its developmental K-8 multirole military aircraft.
In July 1992, the Department of Defense learned of
the negotiations. The reaction of military officials
to the news sparked an interagency review of the decontrol
decision. The co-production deal died after the review
concluded that transfer of such jet engine production
capabilities could threaten US national security.
"The PRC has mounted a widespread effort to obtain
US military technologies by any means-legal or illegal," concludes
the Cox report. "These pervasive efforts pose
a particularly significant threat to US export control
and counterintelligence efforts."
Peter Grier, the Washington bureau chief of the Christian
Science Monitor, is a longtime defense correspondent
and regular contributor to Air Force Magazine. His most
recent article, "
Roadman
on Tricare," appeared in the July 1999 issue.
Copyright Air Force Association. All rightsreserved.
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