May 7, 1999
Web posted at: 6:40 p.m. EDT (2240 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, May 7) -- A bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report formally released Friday concludes that the desire of U.S.companies to take advantage of Asian markets, coupled with lax enforcement of export security by both the Bush and Clinton Administrations, allowed China to obtain U.S. missile technology.

Investigators for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence probed two basic questions.

The first: Did allowing China to launch U.S. commercial satellites enable China to improve its nuclear weapons program?

Their answer was 'possibly' -- even 'probably' after the American satellite companies helped correct a problem with Chinese rockets by sharing additional technology in the wake of two failed launches.

The ten-month probe concluded "the technical information transferred during certain satellite launch campaigns enables (China) to improve its present and future (missile) force that threatens the United States." (84K Sen. Shelby wav file)

The report, cleansed of classified information, never says straight out that China enhanced its nuclear weapons capability with U.S. commercial technology, but page after page indicates investigators believe that's exactly what happened.

The panel also found a concerted effort by the Chinese to influence U.S. policy and reverse trade restrictions imposed in 1989 after the Tiananmen Square crackdown. This effort, according to the report, eventually led to the open flow of technology exports.

"China actively lobbied U.S. companies that they were losing valuable business opportunities because of sanctions and government restrictions," making it clear that access to its potentially vast markets "would be available to companies willing to cooperate," the committee report reads.

For the committee's chairman, Republican Richard Shelby of Alabama, "the transfer of missile technology to the Chinese, I believe, basically to make a buck by a lot of our aerospace companies," is the worst part.

But along with China's lobbying effort, a key factor in facilitating the technology transfer, Senate investigators believe U.S. government officials "failed to take seriously enough the counterintelligence threat during satellite launch campaigns."

Citing decisions to ease export rules by both President Bill Clinton and former President George Bush, the report says the government "emphasized commercial interests over national security" by failing to adequately fund satellite export security teams that would monitor the technology exchanges.

"It's a candid evaluation of what went wrong," says Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, the ranking Democrat on the Senate panel. "It makes no attempt to target the president, indeed this is a problem that began in a previous administration. But there's no question the process of monitoring this has been relatively weak."

The report tackled a second question as well: Did China have a covert plan to influence U.S. politics?

The answer to this question is more definitive. According to the report, in 1995 China "conceived of a plan to influence the U.S. political process favorably toward that country." (164K Sen. Shelby wav file)

"Funds were made available for its implementation," the report states.

There are of course legal lobbying efforts China could have undertaken. But the report cites intelligence information that some Chinese officials illegally contributed to U.S. political candidates. Some of the money came through Johnny Chung, a former friend of the president's, who has pleaded guilty to making illegal campaign contributions.

Still, the report said, "There is no Intelligence Information indicating that contributions had any influence on U.S. policy" nor was their information indicating anybody who got the Chinese money knew where it came from. (56K Sen. Kerrey wav file)

The Intelligence Committee report is not the first nor will it be the last on the extent of China's efforts to get inside U.S. policy, politics and know-how. This report contains little that's surprising and a lot that's familiar, including the feeling, we may never really know what happened.

CNN's Candy Crowley and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Friday, May 7, 1999

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• Senate committee outlines responsibility for China technology transfers
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• Back from Europe, Clinton switches focus to fund-raising
• Energy secretary: 'Blame game' hurts nuclear security

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