Updating China’s arsenal

Commerce Secretary Ron Brown was an arms trader. His main
customers? According to documents obtained from the U.S. Commerce
Department, Brown’s three main clients were Chinese Gen. Ding, Gen. Shen
and Gen. Huai, who were all members of the Chinese army unit, COSTIND
(Commission on Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense).

The official White House spin is that COSTIND was not a Chinese
military unit but a “civilian” agency. However, a November 1997 report,
written for the Commerce Department by “think-tank” company SAIC noted
that COSTIND was neither civilian nor engaged in purely commercial
activities:

“COSTIND supervises virtually all of China’s military research,
development and production. It is a military organization, staffed
largely by active duty officers. … COSTIND also coordinates certain
activities with the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), which
produces, stores, and controls all fissile material for civilian as well
as military applications. COSTIND approves licenses for the use of
nuclear materials for military purposes.”

Clearly, COSTIND was a “military” unit and its mission is to kill.
One COSTIND specialty is “fissile” materials for nuclear weapons. In
1995, the vice minister charged with COSTIND nuclear weapons development
was Gen. Huai Guomo. The same Huai assisted in arranging the export of a
Sun super-computer directly to a Chinese army nuclear weapons lab.

Gen. Huai was born in Zhejaing in 1932. Huai joined the Communist
party in 1952 where he specialized in steel for the Chinese army.
Commerce documents show that Huai then “became involved in the nuclear
industry, joining the Second Ministry of Machine Building Industry as an
engineer of its planning bureau. … General Huai was promoted to
COSTIND Deputy Director in spring 1988 and was made a Major General by
the fall.”

The Commerce documents show that Huai visited Washington, D.C., in
March of 1995 “as part of the Sino-U.S. Joint Defense Conversion
Commission/Chinese Air Traffic Control/Aviation Delegation.”

However, Huai’s cover, the Sino-U.S. Joint Defense “Conversion”
project was not an accurate translation. One document, a 1994 report
written for Commerce by the U.S. Army Defense Attache to Beijing,
contradicts this cover. The report states that the only “conversion” the
Chinese army
was interested in was converting their old weapons into new ones:

“From a western perspective, what the Chinese call ‘conversion’ might
better be called ‘diversification.’ … New product lines are developed
in separate areas while military production capability is retained. As a
by-product of the defense conversion process, through acquisition of new

technologies and manufacturing techniques, defense-related production
will no doubt be enhanced to some extent. This will result in a more
modern Chinese military.”

In addition to modernizing the Chinese weaponry, according to the
1994 report, the Joint Defense Conversion might be better called a “cash
cow” for the Chinese army:

“Some of the monetary profits which accrue from defense conversion
undoubtedly have found their way into the overall funds available for
defense spending, whether officially listed as part of the budget or
not. These additional funds naturally have given the military leadership
greater options
in how they spend the monies available. … It cannot be denied that
the portion of the Chinese defense industry that remains committed to
military production has benefited, and will continue to benefit to some
degree, from technology acquired through the defense conversion process.
It is
certain that some profits from defense conversion could be used to buy
prohibited technology.”

Additional Commerce documents show that in 1995 Huai met Brown for
the so-called “conversion”
project and then toured the Energy Department.

“Susan Tierney, Assistant Secretary for Policy, offered intro
remarks,” states a partially blacked out Commerce document.

“She noted that the DOE Secretary visited China last month and that
cooperation with China is a high priority. She noted that DOE and the
China State Planning Commission have similar goals
in the following areas: 1) Science and technology development
(especially in energy); 2) Funding of research (such as fusion and
fission).”

Clearly, Huai was interested in the atomic proposals. COSTIND, after
all, does oversee the nuclear fission conducted by the Chinese army.

General Huai asked several questions of his Energy Department hosts,
mainly on how American capitalism worked. At the end of the meeting with
DOE, Huai “indicated they would like to develop
cooperation in the nuclear field.”

In fact, COSTIND Chinese army nuclear weapons engineers developed
extensive “cooperation” with the U.S. nuclear weapon laboratories. In
1998, Bill Clinton invited Chinese army spies and A-bomb scientists
inside our weapons labs. Even after Chinese espionage was revealed to
the public, Clinton continued to allow Chinese army agents inside our
nuclear weapons labs.

According to a 1998 Commerce document titled, “Laboratory to
Laboratory Contacts,” the China nuclear weapon exchange program “grew
out of a request made in 1994 by State DAS Einhorn to DOE NN-40 Ken
Luongo. … The request called for contacts between scientists at the US
DOE Weapons Labs (Sandia, Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos) and their
Chinese counterparts.”

The 1998 Commerce document notes that the Chinese agents came “from
the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP), whose oversight
institution is COSTIND, and whose activities involve
the weaponization of nuclear technology.”

“Two Chinese scientists worked at LANL (Lawrence Livermore) and SNL
(Sandia) to finalize the technical specifications of the project which
will apply technologies to ensure physical protection and control of
nuclear materials in a vault like room.”

Translation: The Chinese army can now protect its nuclear weapons in
special bomb-proof underground vaults, designed with the official help
of the Clinton Energy Department.

One key point made by the Commerce 1998 nuclear documents is that the
PLA warlords paid for the American technology: “There is no US funding
of Chinese participation. The Chinese pay
their own way on all of the joint projects.”

U.S. weapons makers, hungry after the end of the long Cold War, awoke
from starvation to face a equally hungry Chinese army, seeking modern
weapons. The Red money not only fed the U.S. military-industrial complex
but it also brought the Chinese army out of hibernation. In 1994, the
U.S. Army Defense Attache in Beijing wrote, “(Chinese) Defense
conversion is a process that, in order to be successful, requires large
foreign technological support and financial investment. China will
continue to publicize its successes in this field and seek foreign
assistance. Opportunities exist for the prudent investor. … It is
possible that American businesses could profit from the Chinese
program.”

Bill Clinton updated the Chinese army with U.S. military technology
in exchange for hard cold cash. Thus, the so-called “conversion” of the
Chinese military was actually a paid “modernization.”

The smell of money can overcome the wise, lull the vigilant to sleep,
corrupt the wicked and tempt the weak. The Red money also brought
Democrat fundraisers like sharks to a fresh kill. The Chinese generals
carried the Mao credit card, accepted at all U.S. nuclear weapons labs.

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