PREPARED STATEMENT STEPHEN D. BRYEN, PRESIDENT, DELTA TECH
PROLIFERATION AND U.S. EXPORT CONTROLS
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL SECURITY,
PROLIFERATION, AND FEDERAL SERVICES
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
JUNE 11, 1997
The sale or transfer of supercomputers is, and has long been, a
sensitive national security issue. It is an issue that not only
directly affects the United States, but also is of great importance to
America's friends and allies. Ultimately, it is a subject that affects
international security and world peace. In this connection I believe
the sale of 46 or more supercomputers to China is a risk to American
national security, and it is a threat to many of our allies and
friends. This includes, but is not limited to, Japan, Australia, New
Zealand, Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia,
Indonesia, Korea in the Pacific region and our allies and friends in
the Middle East, because of China's arms sales to Iran, Iraq, Pakistan
and Syria.
My expertise is in technology policy. Technology policy considers
how to enhance technology and America's technology leadership and also
how to prevent the loss of technology to potential adversaries.
In my years of service in the Defense Department as the Deputy
under Secretary of Defense for Trade Security Policy, and as the
founder and first director of the Defense Technology Security
Administration, I was closely involved in the issue of safeguarding
supercomputers. I helped negotiate and implement the 1986 U.S.-Japan
Supercomputer Agreement, which set up a system to carefully monitor and
regulate sales of supercomputers.
It should be emphasized that regulations on supercomputers had
nothing to do with the bold War. Our interest in working with Japan was
to make sure that supercomputers were not used to help develop weapons
of mass destruction. In the case of China I am convinced that U.S.
supercomputer sales are being used precisely for this purpose.
Our policy of technology transfer to China is, in many respects,
more extreme than what the Europeans and the United States did in
transferring technology to Saddam Hussein before the Gulf War.
In the case of Iraq, Saddam got hold of nuclear technology, missile
manufacturing know-how, and chemical and biological weapons from
Western companies. The acquisition of these capabilities made him much
more dangerous than he otherwise might have been. In my Opinion, we
were very lucky that Saddam jumped the gun and invaded Kuwait before
his nuclear weapons capability was in place.
In the Case of China, we are transferring much. more sophisticated
technology than anyone ever sold to Iraq. The consequence of this is
that China's military will have greater sway over decisions in China
that will affect American national security
China is seeking to enhance its nuclear weapons and their delivery
systems. Examples include adding MIRV (multiple independently targeted
reentry vehicles) capabilities to Chinese ICBM's and manufacturing
small nuclear warheads for extended range cruise missiles.
Supercomputers are important for China to achieve these goals.
Having them will enable China to speed up the design and development
process by many years, to develop advanced weapons covertly and to
build far more accurate nuclear systems that can be used against
military targets.
China can use supercomputers to enhance many other weapons
programs. For example, China can work out the best way to disperse
chemical and biological weapons; can design advanced stealth aircraft
and missiles, can improve its ability to detect submarines (enhanced
ASW), and can intercept and crack encrypted communications. China has
already been given enough supercomputer power to break any commercial
encryption prom, such as those in use today by financial institutions.
Giving China supercomputers also enhances her ability to use advanced
information warfare techniques, such as attacking our own computer
infrastructure.
Chinese acquisition of additional nuclear capabilities, and the
more rapid modernization of her conventional systems, will make our
ability to maintain peace in the region surrounding China more
difficult. Chinese nuclear threats will have to be taken more
seriously.
Last year during China's military exercise in the Taiwan straits, I
was in Taiwan with former CIA Director Jim Woolsey and Admiral Leon
``Bud'' Edney. While China may only have been attempting to disrupt the
Taiwanese elections, it was far from a sure thing that China would not
expand its military exercise (which included live missile firings that
closed off important parts of the Taiwan straits) into an actual attack
on Taiwan. The dispatch of two of our aircraft carrier Task Forces to
the Straits area acted as a deterrent to China--in fact, it shocked the
Chinese. At one point a senior Chinese official, in reaction to the
appearance of the Task Forces, threatened to incinerate Los Angeles in
retaliation.
The sale of supercomputers to China should be regarded as a crazy
policy. Logic dictates an urgent reevaluation of our technology
transfer policy to China based on Chinese behavior in the Taiwan
straits and its threats against Taiwan. But, instead of a reassessment,
reckless transfers of supercomputers to China not only continue but
have been stepped up.
It is even more shocking to realize that neither the Defense
Department, the CIA nor the Commerce Department, which has licensing
authority for supercomputers, had any idea where the supercomputers
were going. ``Ask me no questions, I will tell you no lies'' seems to
be the official policy.
Why did this happen? One reason is the Commerce Department set up a
system to transfer supercomputers where reporting is not required. In
fact, the only reason anybody bothered to find out what was going on
was the public disclosure by the Russians that they had acquired
supercomputers from the United States for two of their nuclear weapons
facilities.
From what can be pieced together from public sources, the situation
in China is much worse and far more dangerous.
Consider the supercomputer system sold to the Chinese Academy of
Sciences. I understand this is a Silicon Graphics Challenge XL:
supercomputer system made up of some 32 processors. According to public
data, this single system is faster than two-thirds of the classified
systems available to the Defense Department, including one NSA site,
the U.S. Naval Underwater Weapons Center, U.S. Army TACOM, the Defense
Science Organizations and the U.S. Air Force/National Test Facility.
The Academy of Sciences in China is deeply involved in nuclear
programs. In fact, in 1987 when I was in China I toured one of the
Academy's nuclear research facilities.
According to research done by an independent expert, the
supercomputer system at the Chinese Academy of Sciences installation is
sitting behind a firewall \1\ (a Cisco router) Basically, it is set up
so that many parts of the system are accessible only by computers and
networks on the restricted side of the firewall.
The system has about a dozen SGI workstations that are clearly
identifiable by names like ``Indigo,'' and ``Iris,'' which are
particular SGI models. Then there are other workstations that use the
names of flowers and animals. It would seem these other workstations
are part of the hidden network of the supercomputer complex. The
network is set up so that the public part of it can be connected to the
outside world. The rest of the system is what we would call a
``classified'' system.\2\ The outside has no access to it.
The computer networks in China are state of the art and are
supplied primarily by the United States. They are supported by digital
telecommunications systems.
It is United States policy to prohibit sales of supercomputers for
any nuclear, chemical, biological or missile end use There is good
reason to believe this prohibition has been effectively bypassed.
There is information that U.S. companies selling supercomputers
understand they will be used for military and nuclear purposes. For
example, one U.S. company marketing supercomputers is in a joint
venture with a state-owned aerospace enterprise and focuses on selling
high-end computers to the aerospace industry in China, much of which is
involved in military work. Another distributor of supercomputers in
China, Geotech, says that its target market for supercomputers includes
``oil and gas [industries], research institutes and defense.'' And, in
any case, all Chinese supercomputer assets are in networks and, as we
have seen, major parts of these networks are closed.
There are those who say that supercomputers going to China are only
for basic scientific research. But, as is well known and accepted,
there is no need to have closed, secure network for basic research.
So far, the Department of Commerce has disclosed that 46
supercomputers have been sold to China over the past eighteen months.
Actually, the number may be far higher. There are three reasons to
distrust the Commerce Department's disclosure:
1. The Commerce Department only recently asked U.S. companies
for data on supercomputers they sold to China. Not all the
companies have reported yet.
2. Powerful computers slightly under the 2,000 MTOP (Millions
of Theoretical Operations Per Second) threshold are
supercomputers and perform the same way as those just above the
2,000 MTOP regulatory limit, are not counted by the Commerce
Department.
3. Many of the less than 2,000 MTOP machines in China may have
been upgraded by adding additional processors. Machines made by
SGI, Convex (Hewlett Packard), Digital Equipment and others can
be upgraded by adding additional processors.
4. Additional computing power can be obtained by special
software for networking parallel-processor type machines.
It is important to know the real number of machines sold, the
networks they are hooked into, and to determine how many are part of
the classified system China is constructing. In addition, it is
important to find out the types of software that have been sold for
these computers, and the likely uses there may be for the software.
Above all, it is vital to assess how these acquisitions will impact on
U.S. defense programs and policies.
The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs Board of
Directors made the following recommendations earlier this month, which
I support. They are:
1. Suspend the current regulations on High Performance
Computers, restoring the previous validated licensing
requirement for supercomputers.
2. Demand a full accounting of supercomputer sales under the
current export regime.
3. Conduct a full assessment of the impact of computer sales
on national security and on weapons proliferation.
4. Assess, using the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency, who
is seeking supercomputers and why they are wanted.
5. Develop and propose an effective multilateral export
licensing system.
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\1\ A computer ``firewall'' is a security device that prevents an
outsider from having access to all or part of a computer system. A
firewall can be software, hardware or a combination of both.
\2\ The classified networks in China are probably encrypted. The
U.S. has sold encryption technology to China.
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