Reprinted from The Washington Times , 5am -- May 4, 1998
U.S. technological aid makes China more dangerous
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
U.S. satellite companies helped China "perfect" its strategic missiles through technology transferred with the approval of the Clinton administration, according to a senior House member.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher said Beijing's strategic rockets were unable to target the United States effectively five years ago but benefited greatly in the past several years by acquiring technology with both commercial and military applications.
"I am very sad to say [the Chinese] now have the capability of landing nuclear weapons in the United States and we are the ones who perfected their rockets," the chairman of the House Science subcommittee on space and aeronautics said in a floor speech Thursday.
Mr. Rohrabacher, California Republican, said until last year the space boosters known as Long March were unreliable and three out of five attempts to launch the boosters ended in failure. The rockets were "upgraded" after several U.S. corporations provided information last year on their flaws, Mr. Rohrabacher said.
Technology experts say space launch technology is identical to that used by strategic missiles. In fact, China's premier manufacturer of Long March boosters makes long-range nuclear missiles for the military.
Mr. Rohrabacher said he is investigating claims that several U.S. companies helped improve Chinese missiles by supplying "stage-separation" technology -- the capability used to assist rocket or missile stages break away smoothly during launch.
More alarming are reports that the Chinese have acquired the technology used to "dispense" satellites in space once they reach orbit. Such technology is identical to that used in launching multiple, independently targetable re-entry vehicles, the so-called MIRV multiple-warheads, he said.
Senior House members, including Speaker Newt Gingrich, were briefed last week on the issue and have asked the administration to explain how the missile technology leaked out. The Science and National Security committees are expected to hold hearings sometime during the next several weeks, House aides said.
The Justice Department is investigating whether Hughes Electronics Corp. and Loral Space & Communications Ltd. improperly supplied dual-use space and strategic missile know-how to China following the 1996 launch failure of a Long March rocket that crashed with a $200 million U.S. satellite on board.
A secret Pentagon report on the companies' technology transfer determined that "United States national security has been harmed," according to U.S. officials who have seen the report.
Mr. Rohrabacher said Mr. Clinton and his administration "have been doing everything they can to quash the investigation." He said the probe was undermined two months ago when Mr. Clinton approved the export to China of similar dual-use technology. The story was first disclosed in the New York Times April 13.
Mr. Rohrabacher also said Loral Chief Executive Officer Bernard Schwartz was the largest individual contributor to the Democratic Party in 1996.
The help provided to the Chinese was a "betrayal of American aerospace workers," who lost out in the exchange, Mr. Rohrabacher said. It also "put us all in the crosshairs of a communist government which, thanks to this assistance, now has the ability not just to put satellites into space but to deliver nuclear weapons to a majority of American cities," he said.
A CIA report sent to senior U.S. policymakers last month said that China now has 13 of its 18 long-range CSS-4 strategic missiles pointed at the United States.
Mr. Rohrabacher said his investigation into the matter was prompted by an executive from a U.S. aerospace company involved in "upgrading" the Chinese missile capability, who said the firm was operating under a "national security waiver" signed by President Clinton. Mr. Rohrabacher said later in an interview that the company was Motorola Corp. He did not identify the executive.
The launch of U.S. satellites was banned in 1989 under sanctions imposed after the bloody crackdown on unarmed protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square by the People's Liberation Army. Some launches have been permitted under White House waivers that Clinton administration officials claim are carried out under strict controls to prevent the technology from being leaked to the Chinese.
U.S. intelligence agencies have said Chinese strategic missiles lacked multiple-warhead capabilities but that new systems are expected to have the advanced several-warhead configurations.
"So the American companies proceeded to provide stage-separation technology, as well as technology that enabled a rocket to spit out satellites, or nuclear warheads, whichever the communist Chinese might want to use on any particular day," Mr. Rohrabacher said.
The Loral and Hughes scientists who gave the Chinese the missile know-how "charged forward to correct the problems of the Long March," he said.Copyright 1998 News World Communications, Inc.
Reprinted with permission of
The Washington Times.
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