High-Tech Transfers To China Continue

Insight Magazine ^ | July 29, 2002 | Zoli Simon

[Stand Watch Listen]

The Bush administration has been "as bad, if not worse" than the Clinton administration when it comes to the transfer of sensitive technologies to the People's Republic of China (PRC), claims Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a nonpartisan public-interest law firm. Fitton says the Bush administration even has "relaxed the rules put in place during the Clinton years." Specifically, he tells Insight, the administration has allowed the transfer of "computer technology [whose] only practical purpose is for nuclear-weapon design." Fitton says that from the beginning the administration went "full-speed ahead" with China trade and efforts to get the PRC into the World Trade Organization (WTO), which Fitton tells Insight only gives China more opportunities to modernize its military and "get cash" with which to buy high-tech weapons elsewhere.

While few have gone so far as Fitton with such complaints, criticism of U.S. transfers of sensitive technology to China is growing. Accuracy in Media, another Washington watchdog group, echoes Fitton on computer-technology transfers: "President Bush seems to have no clearer vision of what constitutes a strategically sensitive export than did Clinton. For example, Republicans harshly condemned Clinton for exporting high-performance computers to China, but President Bush has more than doubled the control threshold on these computers despite existing intelligence estimates that demonstrate how China's national security benefits from such acquisitions."

Indeed, in his last days as a lame-duck president Clinton made exports of U.S. supercomputers easier by raising the export threshold from 28,000 millions of theoretical operations per second (MTOPS) to 85,000 MTOPS. Bush raised that limit to 190,000 MTOPS. A General Accounting Office (GAO) official tells Insight that the government hadn't done the necessary pre-export analysis and that an "interagency process" led by the Department of Defense should be in place for export controls.

An April 2002 report by the GAO on computer-chip technology transfers to China claims that the government did not do an adequate analysis of the cumulative national-security effects of chip exports to China either, and that most export applications are simply approved. The policy is to approve applications unless it is shown that the items in question "would make a direct and significant contribution to electronic and antisubmarine warfare, intelligence gathering, power projection and air superiority."

Never mind that, as a Pentagon official told the GAO, these chips can be used to improve China's capabilities for pre-emptive long-range precision strikes, information dominance, command and control and integrated air defense.

Another reason the government got a bad grade from GAO was the fact that the Commerce Department hasn't conducted any end-user checks, so it's unknown if the exported technologies are used for military purposes, though experts guess they are.

Richard Fisher, senior fellow with the Jamestown Foundation, tells Insight: "In general, I give the Bush administration great credit for solidifying the U.S. commitment to defend Taiwan, and to begin to increase U.S. defensive deployments to Asia to counter China's military buildup against Taiwan. However, it has yet to begin the logical extension of these policies: seeking to curtail major weapon-systems sales and dual-use technology sales to the PRC. The Bush administration has many officials who are aware of this threat and who are privately very concerned, but policy has yet to be enunciated."

The administration is known to be full of Cold Warriors, and the Pentagon is led by Donald Rumsfeld, the most hawkish secretary of defense since Caspar Weinberger. Yet Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, in his former role as a private-sector attorney, helped move technology transfers as a lawyer for Loral Space & Communications Ltd., one of the two U.S. companies (the other one being Hughes Electronics Corp.) that contributed to the dramatic improvement of Chinese space-launch and satellite capabilities after large contributions to Clinton Democrats. When contacted by Insight, Feith's office would not address the technology-transfer issue.

Fisher, who is editor of the Jamestown Foundation's fortnightly China Brief, also gives credit where one wouldn't expect it. "For all of its actions that aided the transfer of dual-use technologies that helped PLA [People's Liberation Army] modernization, the Clinton administration did endure a political storm to stop Israel's sale of the advanced PHALCON aerial radar to the PLA. The Bush administration has said little to nothing about Israel's more recent sale of communication satellites to the PRC, which definitely will be used by the PLA, or about the much more serious threat of Russian weapons and military-technology sales to the PRC."

And Fisher also is concerned about the "gradual easing of restrictions" on civilian helicopters. He specifically mentioned the Sikorsky S-92, which Sikorsky wants to sell to China and which, Fisher tells Insight, could be mobilized for military purposes. James Lilley, U.S. ambassador to China in the George H.W. Bush administration and currently a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, tells Insight that ever since he got into government there has been a debate going on about where to draw that "blurred line" between civilian-only and dual-use technologies. When Ronald Reagan came into office, "we did relax sales" to arm China against the Soviet Union, Lilley said. Clinton went "much further," however, and "colluded with the Chinese." There was "no real balance or thoughtfulness" to Clinton's approach, Lilley adds. However, there's "no evidence" of a similar lack of balance in the current Bush administration, Lilley tells Insight.

He also says that pressuring Russia to stop arms sales to China wouldn't work and that, since "this administration has not, will not," name China as an enemy, the kind of wholesale blocking of technology transfers that critics want is unrealistic. Lilley adds that trying to rectify Clinton-era mistakes might be like "clos[ing] the barn door after the horse has fled." As Fisher points out, China already is "becoming self-sufficient" in computer technology.

Gary Schmitt, a former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer and executive director of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in the Reagan years, tells Insight that while the Bush administration exercises "more care … on a day-to-day level" than the Clinton administration, it's still "on record" supporting the business wing of the GOP on the Export Administration Act (EAA). The original EAA expired in 1994 under the Clinton administration, and was kept alive by executive order. A reauthorization, the Export Administration Act of 2001, has languished in Congress. While the House version of the bill puts more emphasis on national security, the Senate version gives business interests priority, a Capitol Hill source tells Insight. This version would shift the dual-use approval process from the State Department back to the Commerce Department, as in the Clinton days.

As Schmitt, now executive director of the Project for the New American Century, described it, the fight about the EAA has had a small band of Republican senators — including Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Jon Kyl of Arizona, Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Richard Shelby of Alabama — fighting the business wing of the GOP led by Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas. "Most Republicans are as bad as Democrats," Schmitt laments.

The reason the Senate version, pushed by "the embedded bureaucracy" and "business groups," is supported by the Bush administration, the Capitol Hill source tells Insight, is probably that the administration "is not getting both sides of the story." If it had taken a serious look at the issue, its approach might have been different, the source says. After Sept. 11, many on Capitol Hill were hoping that the terrorist attacks would be such a wake-up call that technology transfers would stop. But that remained a vain hope, the source adds.

A Republican national-security analyst with whom Insight spoke insists the Chinese can get cutting-edge military technology, such as information warfare and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons from Russia. This defense analyst expresses concern that China could, using the best of Russian and U.S. technology, one day surpass both the United States and Russia in high-tech weaponry. Finally, he stresses the importance of reclaiming "the moral high ground." As he puts it, "We lost the moral high ground with Clinton" and we can't expect other countries not to proliferate weapons systems and technologies if that's exactly what the United States is doing or allowing to happen.

Peter Huessy from the National Defense University Foundation tells Insight that while the Bush administration has done "a fairly good job" so far on proliferation issues, the most crucial factor at play is time. After "eight years of neglect" by an administration that was concentrating on "spin [and] winning the news cycle," the Bush administration needs time to rectify Clinton-era errors, Huessy says.

As Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, has pointed out: "When American companies pay to launch satellites aboard Chinese rockets, they are directly financing the same entity that builds China's intercontinental ballistic missiles." Huessy tells Insight, however, that the Bush administration already has stopped the U.S. satellite launches in China. This is thanks in large part to a Russian-U.S. joint venture that uses Russian Proton and U.S. Atlas rocket technology to put satellites into orbit.

Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC), has both praise and criticism for the Bush administration concerning technology transfers to China. He says Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John R. Bolton has "made a point of enforcing nonproliferation sanctions" [see picture profile, July 22]. He credits Bolton with putting a stop to U.S. satellite launches in China. However, the Chinese firms sanctioned by the Bush administration for proliferation activities never made the Commerce Department's dual-use watch list of companies with which U.S. businesses should avoid dealing, Sokolski tells Insight. This might not be the result of conscious policy decisions, he adds, but at best it reveals a "lack of due diligence."

A big problem, says Sokolski, is that we not only are transferring militarily useful end-products, but that we also are giving the Chinese "the tools for them to be able to make their own." A GAO official tells Insight that in addition to technology we are transferring know-how to the Chinese. However, he can't comment in detail because the GAO review on this problem still is ongoing.

Sokolski also points out that a major cause of the China export troubles is the fact that U.S. companies dealing in high-tech satellites, computers and telecommunications not only see a market in China, but a cheap manufacturing base. Hughes and Loral, two of the main culprits, wanted U.S. satellites to be made in China, Sokolski says. This was blocked, thanks in part to Sokolski blowing the lid on the matter.

Most defense experts with whom Insight spoke for this special report agree that the Bush administration has been far better on national-security issues than the Clinton administration, even on technology transfers. As Jack Spencer of the Heritage Foundation points out, however, the best guarantee of U.S. security in the long run is "a democratic China." But then, as Sen. Helms used to put it, "We'd have some ham and eggs — if we had some ham and if we had some eggs."

Zoli Simon is an intern for Insight magazine.

[NoLongerLurker]

Controlling transfers of high tech military technology to China will always be difficult because the Chinese are superb at money laundering and bribing, and the recipients of these funds have been in BOTH parties. And it will continue to be until taking foreign campaign contrbutions is made a felony with mandatory jail time.

The Arabs are also experienced bribe givers. The Harken Energy deal of "Dubya" was little more than a thinly disguised bribe of the son of the Vice-President, with the Bahrainis doing the bribing.

[Free the USA]

Index Bump

[Publius]

Who Sold Us Out to China: A Study of the Sino-American Relationship

[backhoe]

-Softwar!-- has tons of National Security info-

-Bill Gertz's Site-- China/Panama/ & more

-AviationNow--

-The Center for Security Policy--

-The S-300PMU [SA-10 land-based, SA-N-6 naval version] surface-to-air missile system --

-Missilie Threat--

-Lots of Info Re:Nukes, Missiles, Cox Report, etc.--

[Slingshot]

When I hear legitimate evidence that Bush has received contributions from China then I may possibly consider there is some comparison between bush and Clintonian(The name of his statue).

Allow me to give you a word picture of billy Boy.

A box of cigars on a table by a chair in the White House.

[Stand Watch Listen]

Hmmmm that's your 'read' of this article? Hmmmmm...suggest you reread it.

Political contributions to Clinton are only slightly mentioned in the eighth paragraph.

The article delves into this administration's continued technology transfers. Many of which have military applications. Technology that may place our country and its citizens in harm's way. Technology to a country that has already brought down a reconnaissance plane without any consequences. Technology to a country that has expended vast amounts to upgrade its military capabilities. An upgraded military paid by our country's vast trade deficit with China.

[Uncle Bill]

JUDICIAL WATCH: "The Bush administration has been "as bad, if not worse" than the Clinton administration when it comes to the transfer of sensitive technologies to the People's Republic of China."

Accuracy in Media: "President Bush seems to have no clearer vision of what constitutes a strategically sensitive export than did Clinton. For example, Republicans harshly condemned Clinton for exporting high-performance computers to China, but President Bush has more than doubled the control threshold on these computers despite existing intelligence estimates that demonstrate how China's national security benefits from such acquisitions."

INSIGHT MAGAZINE: "Indeed, in his last days as a lame-duck president Clinton made exports of U.S. supercomputers easier by raising the export threshold from 28,000 millions of theoretical operations per second (MTOPS) to 85,000 MTOPS. Bush raised that limit to 190,000 MTOPS. A General Accounting Office (GAO) official tells Insight that the government hadn't done the necessary pre-export analysis and that an "interagency process" led by the Department of Defense should be in place for export controls.

An April 2002 report by the GAO on computer-chip technology transfers to China claims that the government did not do an adequate analysis of the cumulative national-security effects of chip exports to China either, and that most export applications are simply approved. The policy is to approve applications unless it is shown that the items in question "would make a direct and significant contribution to electronic and antisubmarine warfare, intelligence gathering, power projection and air superiority."

6 post replies. It's ok now, move on. It's for our children and grandchildren. Serfs up dude!

George W. Bush Grants Permanent Trade Status To China

Bush In Bed With Clinton and China - Jim Robinson

George W. Bush - Return of The Wimp Factor

Prescott S. Bush Jr. - Bush Kin Predicts China Will Overtake U.S.

LION DANCING WITH WOLVES - China - Haig and Kissinger

Li Ka-shing's Growing Empire
Note: Elaine Chao's Ties To Chinese Leader

Speaker Hastert Hires National Security Advisor With Access To Most Sensitive U.S. Intelligence That Was Former Lobbyist For Communist China's Li Ka-Shing

Trading With The Enemy

Links

Links

---

From: OKCSubmariner:

Notra Trulock has a new book coming out soon entitled "Codename: Kindred Spirits" about Chinese nuclear espionage. If the government reviewers have not cut too much of the important parts out, the book should be out around Labor Day. You can place orders for the book on amazon.com. The publisher is to be Encounter Books.

The Bush adminisrtation went into court to block Trulock's Federal lawsuits involving Wen Ho Lee and the FBI. So far Trulock has been able to have one of the lawsuits reinstated and the other lawsuit is under appeal.

The Republican leadership is not as conservative as what many might think. When it comes to nuclear espionage and transfers, the Bush administration may be as liberal as Clinton and the Democrats. Bush has said more than once he wants to put the Chinagate matter in the past and not investigate or hold those accountable many of whom are holdovers from the CLinton administration now serving under Bush.

Also, two months ago Bush announced his agreement with Putin for the US to share US star wars missile defense with the Russians and to jointly develop the technology with the Russians. Bush and Putin set up a joint committe to do this. During the 2000 Presidential campaign and shortly after his election, Bush announced that he planned to offer the Russians joint operations of missile defense with the Russians.

Since there has been no vote by the people or Congrees on transfering US star wars technology to Russia, Bush actions in this regard are illegal and tantamont to treason in my opinion. If Bush proceeds with joint operations with the Russians this would also be dreadful and treasonous in my opinion.

Senator Shelby's aid on defense matters confirmed to me in June 2002 that the US was working directly with the Russians on developing star wars missile defense and that Shelbys constitutents in ALabama were complaining about it. Yet nothing has been done by COngress to protest the move by Bush.

The White House announced last month it was taking steps to block the COngress from learning details of US missile defense testing. Yet this same testing data is the data eventually to be shared with Russia but not COngress! This is another example of why I believe this is illegal and treason.

My opinion based on public statements made by Bush Senior and GW Bush over the years is that this is being done to establish a world government. I was also told this by nuclear scientists at Kirtland AFB when they offererd me a job on star wars development( I declined because I object to sharing the tech with Russia) as far back as 1983. I wrote articles in 2000 about this for FreeRepublic.
20 posted on 7/10/02 7:23 PM Pacific by OKCSubmariner

BUSH JUSTICE DEPARTMENT BLOCKS RENO DEPOSITION

Swept under the red carpet

GOP Folds On Chinagate

[ovrtaxt]

This is the ugly side of the Republicans. It's typical of the PC way they have handled this whole 'war'. Unfortunately, most conservatives are unwilling to deal with the evidence that the Bush admin. is probably as corrupt as the Democrats in this area.

I've noticed something that nobody wants to talk about. We are frantically passing 'security' measures like the Patriot Act and others, encroaching on our freedoms with regularity. IN the meantime, Congress refuses to formally declare war, and the Admin. refuses to push for it.

Now, Im unfamiliar with the law here, but doesn't a war declaration provide for the temporary suspension of the Constitution and the subsequent reinstatement later on? It's exactly what we need to establish security, and protect our liberty at the same time, and the politicians are avoiding it. It's obviously a power grab.

[Uncle Bill]

"I've noticed something that nobody wants to talk about. We are frantically passing 'security' measures like the Patriot Act and others, encroaching on our freedoms with regularity."

Click Me

[Uncle Bill]

The Bush administration has decided not to tell America exactly how much business the Chinese army does inside the United States - By Charles Smith

Cover-up at the Bush Commerce Department - By Charles Smith

Is Pentagon muzzling its export watchdogs? - By Paul Sperry

Ashcroft Winding Down Justice Department Chinagate Probe

Bush Justice Department Obstructs Testimony of Chinagate Scandal Figure John Huang

---

China Continues to Arm Al-Qaeda

Telecom Equipment Project by the Chinese for Taliban after 9-11

"We're not looking for individuals of any particular religion or from any particular country."
FBI Director Robert Mueller - SOURCE.

[Uncle Bill]

China to target U.S. aircraft carriers

[Uncle Bill]

BTTT

[2sheep]

Thank you for posting this material.  Your threads take a long time to get through but should be read by many more than post on them.

It is appalling that one can sit as President of a country and sell or give info to that country's enemies which are intent on destroying it.  In the old days that would have been called Treason.  It is difficult to imagine what goes on in the President's head.

[babylonian]

Isn't President Bush simply wonderful?!

[Red Jones]

many people are loyal democrats and thus when president clinton was accused of so many things they pretended those accusations were false and defended him no matter what. Many people are loyal republicans and have the same exact tendencies regarding president bush. We should all be overwhelmingly concerned with the american interest. Partisan posturing is stupid.

[It'salmosttolate]

Russia is no longer USA’s enemy says President Bush…
Does he know about joint Russian-Chinese military exercises in August?
"Russia is no longer the enemy," he said, stressing that NATO must turn its attention from deterring an
attack on Western Europe by Communist forces to the threats made clear by the September 11
terrorist attacks on the United States.

Red China and Russia to hold joint military exercise in August
A Sino-Russian joint military exercise scheduled for
August aims to test the reliability of bilateral military communications and will not target any third country, Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said Thursday.

American corporations doing business in Beijing
harming US national security
The United States is underestimating the threat to its security, jobs and
technological competitiveness caused by exploding trade and financial
relations with China, according to a fact-finding report to be sent to
Congress on Monday.

Red China test-fires Russian-made missiles
China's test firing of a new air-to-air missile, the Russian-made R-77 (known in the West as the AA-12 Adder), in late June is causing accelerated deliveries of weapons previously ordered by Taiwan as well as possible new US arms sales to the island.

Proposals on USA-Red China national security
Recommendations included in the U.S.-China Security
Review Commission's report to Congress.

Russia cuts multibillion dollar deals with Red China for weapons and energy
Over the past couple of weeks China has signed multibillion-dollar deals with Russia, bringing it economically
and militarily closer to Russia than it has been since the 1960s. And this has happened with the tacit or active
participation of the United States.

Illuminati Planned 150 Years Ago To Arm China To Be Equal To U.S.

China Raising So Much Money In U.S., Security Concerns Are Mounting

"But none of the wicked shall understand [that the End of the Age is upon them]." [Daniel 12:10b]

[It'salmosttolate]

BuMp to #17

[2sheep]

Partisan posturing is stupid.

The Democrats and Republicans are taking turns gang-raping America.

[rdavis84]

The Sheep refuse to face the truth of the magnitude of the Evil we're seeing.