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China tells tale of Web 'secrets'

Tuesday, June 1, 1999

By LIZ SLY
Special from the Chicago Tribune

BEIJING -- In an effort to prove that China did not steal sensitive nuclear technology from the United States, Chinese officials Monday staged a tour of the World Wide Web for journalists to demonstrate that pictures and descriptions of the weapons allegedly stolen are readily available on the Internet.

Using a laptop connected to an overhead projector, a representative of China's state-run Internet company first visited the site of the Federation of American Scientists and clicked on a variety of pictures and charts describing the U.S. nuclear warheads China is alleged to have stolen. (http://www.fas.org)

He then used the Yahoo search engine to call up other examples of U.S. weaponry that the Cox report to Congress issued last week alleged China had acquired through espionage. The bipartisan report was issued by a House Select Committee on U.S. National Security chaired by Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif.

"Performance data on the seven types of nuclear warheads -- W56, W62, W79, W76, W78, W87 and W88 -- have long been openly published in the United States," said Zhao Qizheng, minister of information under the State Council, who presented the data.

"They are no longer secrets. There is nothing to steal," he said.

The implication was that China had acquired the technology required to build sophisticated thermonuclear warheads by downloading it from the Internet, and not, as the allegations in the Cox report suggest, by sending spies into U.S. laboratories.

The sites visited seemed to contain little detailed information about how to build nuclear warheads. But Zhao said two publicly available books had been helpful in providing the technology, including "U.S. Nuclear Forces and Capability" by Thomas B. Cochran and "U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History" by Chuck Hansen.

It was China's most determined attempt yet to rebut the charges contained in the Cox report, which accuses China of stealing U.S. nuclear secrets over 20 years.

It also was the closest China has come to admitting that it has acquired the technology, something that China has neither confirmed nor denied, though it has strenuously rejected the espionage charges.