April 24, 1999	atimes.com

China China espionage may help its weapons program: CIA Washington - China stole U.S. nuclear warhead and weapons designs that could help it develop future mobile land-based and submarine missiles, according to a new assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency. There's no evidence any of the U.S. technology has been used in any of China existing nuclear weapons, such as its 20 CSS-4 long-range missiles, the intelligence agency said. U.S. technology could show up in a few years on third-generation missiles such as the land-based mobile DF-31, the agency said. The CIA presented its assessment to members of the U.S. Congress. The agency examined how much the theft of nuclear secrets from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico may have improved China's intercontinental ballistic missile capability. ''China obtained by espionage classified U.S. nuclear weapons information that probably accelerated its program to develop future nuclear weapons,'' according to unclassified summary of the assessment. ''This collection program allowed China to focus successfully down critical paths and avoid less promising approaches to nuclear weapons designs." Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji repeatedly denied during his recent trip to Washington that China had engaged in nuclear espionage. The CIA's publication of an unclassified assessment is unusual and will stir congressional debate on technology transfers to China, a top congressional analyst said. ''Has the threat been increased? Based on what we hear today, we have to say that the threat has increased,'' said Shirley Kan, a national security and China specialist for the non- partisan Congressional Research Service. ''It really doesn't matter how China got the information, the fact that they have been in successful in getting nuclear weapons information is the important point here,'' Kan said. ``The fact they engaged in espionage is not surprising." So far, ''the aggressive Chinese collection effort has not resulted in any apparent modernization of their deployed strategic force or any new nuclear weapons deployment,'' the CIA said in its report summary. The U.S. government doesn't know how much knowledge China gained from ''espionage, contact with U.S. and other countries' scientists, conferences, publications, unauthorized media disclosures, declassified U.S. weapons information,'' said the summary. ''The relative contribution of each cannot be determined." Even so, the weapons information ''has made an important contributions to the Chinese objective to maintain a second- strike capability and provided information for future designs,'' the summary said. President Bill Clinton said he's asking the National Counterintelligence Policy Board to assess potential vulnerabilities at other institutions associated with nuclear weapons. Clinton said in a statement he's seeking ''concrete steps that may be appropriate to strengthen protections against efforts by China and other countries to acquire sensitive nuclear weapons information." The CIA damage assessment didn't examine whether or to what extent China used commercial satellite launch technology transferred by Loral Space & Communications Ltd. and Hughes Electronics Corp., two of the nation's top three commercial satellite markers, to improve its missile fleet. A special House committee described the missile technology theft, which occurred about 1988, in a still classified report that's been held up because of negotiations with White House aides over how much information can be made public. The bipartisan report will be issued under the signatures of House Representatives Christopher Cox, a California Republican and Norm Dicks, a Washington Democrat. The design theft episode and its disclosure in the New York Times opened the Clinton administration to allegations it waited too long to notify Congress of the security breaches - from April 1996, when it learned of the apparent thefts, to February 1998, when it issued a presidential directive tightening security at nuclear labs. The CIA damage assessment ''confirmed the select committee's findings with respect to serious nuclear-weapons related espionage by China targeted at U.S. national weapons laboratories,'' Cox and Dicks said today in a statement. They'll meet tomorrow with Clinton to discuss their report's 38 recommendations for improving U.S. security against Chinese espionage. (Bloomberg)

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