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Image on Pakistan's flag |
China covertly helped Pakistan in developing its nuclear weapons program and continues that support even now while that assistance has become the basis for Pakistan's help with Iran's nuclear development effort, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
A U.S. government report from the congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said that Chinese support to Pakistan began in the mid-1980s and covertly supplied technology and materials for an entire nuclear weapons development program.
"In 1983, U.S. intelligence agencies reported that China had transferred to Pakistan a complete nuclear weapon design and enough weapons-grade uranium for two nuclear weapons," the report said. "Despite Pakistan's poor track record for preventing proliferation of nuclear materials and technology, China continues to support Islamabad's
nuclear development."
The revelation is the first time the U.S. government has confirmed what has been widely assessed for some time. It came in a brief, boxed statement buried in the midst of a 381-page overall annual assessment on the "national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China."
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China's nuclear assistance to Pakistan underscores the long-standing strategic relationship between the two countries spanning five decades.
"No relationship between two sovereign states is as unique and durable as that between Pakistan and China," according to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.
The relationship is designed to counter the nemesis of both China and Pakistan – India. That relationship began in the mid-1950s when China sought help from a number of countries in the region as its relationship with India became more hostile, resulting in conflicts from 1962 to the late 1980s.
"Chinese policy toward Pakistan is driven primarily by its interest in countering Indian power in the region and diverting Indian military force and strategic attention away from China," according to Lisa Curtis, a senior research fellow at the Washington think-tank Heritage Foundation.
China today remains Pakistan's largest defense supplier, having provided equipment, technology and scientific expertise not only for Pakistan's nuclear weapons but also for its ballistic missile programs.
China also has helped Pakistan build two nuclear reactors and promised to build two more, notwithstanding international criticism Pakistan received from the nuclear espionage of A.Q. Khan, known as the father of the Pakistan nuclear bomb.
Khan had developed an international nuclear espionage network to smuggle nuclear components into Pakistan and in turn assisted such countries as North Korea and Iran in creating their own nuclear weapons program.
Zardari recently released Khan from house arrest, much to the consternation of the U.S. Yet, there is no evidence that his international network has been dismantled. To the contrary, it looks like it continues to flourish. Khan himself remains under the protection of Pakistan's intelligence service, the Inter-Service Intelligence Directorate, or ISI.
The ISI also was responsible for creating the Taliban which is battling U.S. forces today in Afghanistan.
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