China Reform Monitor, No. 84, June 15,
1998
American Foreign Policy Council, Washington, D.C.
NSC
Documents, CIA Official Show White House Ignored China
Missile Transfers; US Intelligence Reports Chinese
Military Uses American-made Civilian Satellites
- June 7
-
A US Air Force intelligence assessment
concluded that a 1996 report given to Beijing by US
satellite builders, including Loral Corporation,
provided rocket guidance improvements that could be
used in every Chinese military missile system, Newsday
reports.
- June 11
-
The US General Accounting Office (GAO)
reported to the Congress that the recent policy change
that gave the Commerce Department total control over
licensing commercial satellite exports weakened
Pentagon safeguards to prevent countries like China
from obtaining missile know-how, reports the Washington
Times. "Defense's power to influence the
decision-making process has diminished" since the
rule change, testified GAO defense specialist
Katherine Schinasi at a Senate Intelligence Committee
hearing. Under the new rules, Commerce is not required
to impose security safeguards as a condition for
giving a company a satellite export license.
The Washington Post cites
declassified White House documents showing that since
1993, despite clear evidence that China had sold
ballistic missile parts to Pakistan, President Clinton
has waived through every proposal for US satellite
exports to China.
- June 12
-
The former director of the CIA's
Nonproliferation Center told the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee that the Clinton Administration
ignored evidence that China violated a missile export
agreement by shipping M-11 missiles to Pakistan, the Washington
Times reports. Gordon Oehler stated that
administration policy makers used "almost any
measure" to block intelligence judgments confirming the missile transfers, which would have
required economic sanction to be imposed on China
under US nonproliferation laws, including on the sale
of satellites.
President Clinton recently told
religious leaders that US sanctions laws caused his
administration to "fudge" the facts of
Chinese proliferation or human rights violations to
avoid the penalties. "Nowhere has this fudging of
the facts been more clearly manifested than with
respect to China's missile proliferation," said
Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Senator Jesse
Helms.
- June 13
According to highly classified US
intelligence reports, for the past two years China's
military has relied on American-made satellites sold for
civilian purposes for military communications, the New
York Times reports. The intelligence reports were
recounted last year in a document compiled last year by
the Pentagon and sent to hundreds of senior
policy-makers at the White House, State Department and
other agencies. The document - distributed a few months
before Clinton approved the latest sale of an American
commercial satellite to China - states that China's army
is making extensive use of American-made satellites to
transmit its coded messages.
The White House has justified its
satellite sales to China on grounds that they are used
solely for civilian purposes. The Times
adds, the reports are the most powerful evidence to date
that the Clinton administration knew that China's army
has taken advantage of White House decisions to
encourage sales of satellites to Chinese companies,
including Hong Kong companies with ties to China's
government and military.
--Al Santoli
-
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