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Title:  "Senator Cranston Troubled by Chinese Weapons Proliferation." Senator Alan Cranston said he was troubled by reports concerning the sharing of nuclear technology by China with Iran and inserted into the record relevant texts. (911101)

Source:  CONGRESSIONAL RECORD (PERIODICAL), OCT 30
Date:  19911101

Text:
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11/01/91 * ATTN. BEIJING: SENATOR CRANSTON TROUBLED BY CHINESE WEAPONS PROLIFERATION (Text: Remarks, inserts from Congressional Record) (2590)

Washington -- Citing recent articles from The Washington Times and The Washington Post concerning the sharing of nuclear technology by China with Iran, Senator Alan Cranston (Democrat of California) said, "I am deeply troubled that the administration has not done enough on its own and with other nations to discourage Chinese proliferation activities.

"We did not get straight answers from the administration in the past about Chinese involvement in the export of weapons of mass destruction," he said in remarks on the floor of the Senate.

Cranston is chairman of the East Asia and Pacific Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He proposed the creation of a "Conference on Security and Cooperation in Asia to examine intraregional developments that are causing extraregional problems such as nuclear weapons proliferation.

"Secretary Baker should either not go to Beijing on his impending trip to Asia, or should go for the primary purpose of making plain that China's proliferation policy is unacceptable and will lead to United States actions that the Chinese will regret," Cranston said.

The following text of Cranston's remarks and inserts of the cited articles appeared in the October 30 Congressional Record:

Remarks by CRANSTON (D-CA) CHINA'S DANGEROUS NUCLEAR TRADE CONTINUES UNCHECKED

Mr. CRANSTON. Mr. President, on October 16, the following headline appeared in the Washington Times over a news story "Chinese Build Reactor for Iranian Program." The first paragraph states:

"The Chinese Government is building a nuclear research reactor in Iran that is part of an Iranian secret weapons program, according to Bush administration officials."

This morning, the following headline appeared over an article in the Washington Post: "Officials Say Iran is Seeking Nuclear Weapons Capability. China Sale of Equipment Worth Millions Cited." The first paragraph reads, in part:

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"...Iran is aggressively seeking to develop a nuclear weapon and China has provided Iran with equipment capable of making some fissile material for such a weapon, according to Bush administration officials."

These officials remain anonymous. A man who has not remained anonymous is Deputy President Ayatollah Mohajerani, of Iran, who, in an interview distributed by the official Iranian news agency, said:

"Because the enemy (Cranston: Clearly meaning Israel)-- because the enemy has nuclear facilities, the Muslim states too should be equipped with the same capacity."

Mohajerani, who normally is responsible for legal and parliamentary affairs but occasionally speaks for Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on foreign policy matters, said, "Muslims should strive to go ahead."

And he said:

"I am not talking about one Muslim country, but rather the entirety of Muslim states....We witnessed the destruction of Iraq's nuclear devices" by parties that he said have no business interfering in such matters.

Meaning, obviously, Israel.

Mr. President, I today, as chairman of the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, conducted a hearing that primarily delved into these matters. We had a witness from the State Department and the Department of Defense, and I heard from others. After being briefed today by State and Defense Department officials, my concerns about press reports that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons capability with Chinese assistance have been greatly intensified.

I am deeply troubled that the administration has not done enough on its own and with other nations to discourage Chinese proliferation activities.

We did not get straight answers from the administration in the past about Chinese involvement in the export of weapons of mass destruction.

The administration owes the Congress and the American people an explanation about why only last June the State Department told the Senate that the Chinese were not aiding Iran in the nuclear area.

Secretary Baker should either not go to Beijing on his impending trip to Asia or should go for the primary purpose of making plain that China's proliferation policy is unacceptable and will lead to United States actions that the Chinese will regret.

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I am unsatisfied with the administration's meager assurances provided at this morning's hearing, which I chaired in the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee, that, although it is concerned about reports of weapons and nuclear technology transfers by China, it finds that China has been "somewhat cooperative" in controlling weapons proliferation.

Frankly, I find it difficult to understand what "somewhat cooperative" means in this very vital, dangerous matter.

Assistant Secretary of State Richard Solomon cited China's pledge to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its decision to refrain from sales it had been contemplating as evidence of cooperation. The administration reasserted its position that it possesses a "broad range of tools" to discourage China from transferring weapons technology. Secretary Solomon reiterated that the United States policy of engagement with China is the "only realistic way to deal with these issues."

Mr. President, I am not convinced that the United States is doing what it can -- and there are many things it could do -- to prevent China from peddling lethal materials and weapons. The consequences of further inaction will be very, very grievous.

According to today's news reports, China has plans to sell Iran millions of dollars worth of calutron equipment used in the manufacture of highly enriched uranium -- a primary component of nuclear weapons. Proliferation experts have questioned this sale, stating that calutron devices are not normally part of a civilian nuclear energy program. Even administration officials have questioned the sale, stating that it appears at odds with China's supposed cooperative stance on nuclear proliferation matters.

Chinese willingness to help the Iranians acquire nuclear weapons capability would exacerbate the underlying tensions in the region and works at cross purposes with our efforts to bring a real and comprehensive peace to the Middle East. The Madrid conference, an important step forward in the peace process -- symbolized by the olive branches waved by Palestinian delegates -- is overshadowed by this symbol of enmity, the specter of an Islamic bomb. Revelations about Iran's quest for nuclear weapons capability serve as a sharp reminder that there are many sources of instability in the Middle East. China's role in supplying equipment to the Iranians threatens to open up an era of nuclear brinkmanship.

Today's discussion also indicates that the administration's most-favored-nation policy for China has not worked to improve Chinese proliferation policy. The administration has told Congress over and over again that it is opposed to placing conditions on the renewal of China's most-favored-

GE 4 PXF504 nation trade status because conditions would "hold our single most powerful instrument for promoting reform hostage to the reactions of the hard liners in Beijing." Well, Mr. President, just how far has the "single most powerful instrument" gotten us in weapons proliferation control? All the way to Iran, perhaps.

Today's reports and hearing reaffirm my view that new international methods for controlling proliferation are necessary. This morning I proposed that it is time to consider the creation of a Conference on Security and Cooperation in Asia to examine intraregional developments that are causing extraregional problems such as nuclear weapons proliferation.

I believe we need a much stronger international regime that will be capable of doing more than the preset, obviously failing, regime is doing to prevent nuclear proliferation. Whatever the vehicle, the United States must take an active leadership role within the international community in controlling renegade states.

Let me finally say, Mr. President, the story is not yet told. The bottom line is not yet written on whether or not China will get most-favored-nation status. And perhaps these revelations will cause some second thinking on that subject.

I ask unanimous consent that the Washington Times and Washington Post articles be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the articles were ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

(end text of remarks) (begin text of inserts)

Text Inserted by CRANSTON (D-CA)

Chinese Build Reactor for Iranian Program By Bill Gertz From The Washington Times, Oct. 16, 1991

The reactor site was photographed by a U.S. intelligence satellite last month in the early stages of construction at an unspecified location in western Iran, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"It's a research reactor that almost certainly will be used to build nuclear weapons," said one official familiar with intelligence reports. Another official said China's involvement in the Iranian reactor program is a further indication that Beijing is not heeding U.S. calls to limit the proliferation of nuclear technology to the unstable region.

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Technicians affiliated with the China Nuclear Energy Industry Corp., a quasi-government company, are reportedly involved in the Iranian reactor program, this official said. The firm markets nuclear technology and low-enriched uranium.

The Chinese also are building a reactor in Algeria that is believed by U.S. intelligence officials to be part of a covert nuclear weapons program.

In September, the chief of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Reza Amrollahi, said Iran would have several nuclear power plants within 10 years. He has denied Iran "is capable of making atomic bombs."

Few details are known about Iran's drive to build a nuclear bomb. But the National Intelligence Council, an analytical arm of the office of the CIA director, issued a major interagency report in June that stated Iran is one of three developing nations building a nuclear bomb.

Algeria and Iraq also are engaged in nuclear arms programs.

A spokeswoman for the State Department's Near East and South Asia bureau declined to comment on the construction of the Iranian reactor because it would involve "sensitive intelligence sources and methods."

"We have made clear our concerns about Iran's commitment to its Nuclear Non-proliferation (Treaty) obligations," the spokeswoman said. Iran is a signatory of the treaty.

The State Department, as a matter of broad policy, is trying to halt the spread of nuclear weapons to the Middle East, including Iran, she said.

At a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna last month, Mr. Amrollahi said Iran would complete construction of a nuclear facility at Bushehr, in southwestern Iran on the Persian Gulf coast, which was left unfinished by German companies.

In addition to nuclear cooperation, Iran also has sought to purchase Chinese M-11 ballistic missiles.

Text Inserted by CRANSTON (D-CA)

Officials Say Iran Is Seeking Nuclear Weapons Capability By R. Jeffrey Smith From the Washington Post

The U.S. intelligence community has recently concluded that Iran is aggressively seeking to develop a nuclear weapon and that China has provided Iran with equipment capable of

GE 6 PXF504 making some fissible material for such a weapon, according to Bush administration officials.

Discovery of the Chinese sale to Iran comes amid disclosures of an unexpectedly advanced nuclear weapons program in neighboring Iraq. Some U.S. analysts now suspect that Iran may be seeking to do what Iraq has been blocked from doing and build a nuclear weapon that can be brandished in the Middle East.

As recently as June, U.S. officials said there was no evidence that China was assisting any effort by Iran to make nuclear weapons. Administration officials said their new concern about Iran's intentions was heightened last week when a senior Iranian official expressed interest in building a nuclear arsenal to match that believed held by Israel.

In an interview distributed by the official Iranian news agency, deputy president Ataollah Mohajerani said that "because the enemy has nuclear facilities, the Muslim states too should be equipped with the same capacity."

Mohajerani, who normally is responsible for legal and parliamentary affairs but occasionally speaks for Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on foreign policy matters, said "Muslims should strive to go ahead" because nuclear weapons can enable countries to achieve a military superiority over potential enemies.

"I am not talking about one Muslim country, but rather the entirety of Muslim states," he said, noting that "we witnessed the destruction of Iraq's nuclear devices" by parties that he said have no business interfering in such matters.

U.S. officials said the remarks may represent a significant statement of Iranian intentions. "Iran is trying to do things on the cutting edge of nuclear technology that they would not find interesting if they did not have weapons in mind," said one official, adding that the Iranian program is still believed to be at an earlier stage of development than was Iraq's program before the start of the Persian Gulf War last January.

While declining to provide details, the official said the U.S. intelligence community had concluded after a review that Iran is seeking "much more (technology) than would be needed" to develop a civilian nuclear power network, which Iranian officials routinely have claimed is their sole objective.

"They have tremendous social needs, and they are a major exporter of oil, yet they are spending all this money on nuclear-related equipment," the official said. "It doesn't make any sense."

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In addition to evidence of nuclear cooperation between Iran and China, administration officials site recent efforts by Iran, so far unsuccessful, to obtain nuclear-related technology from Brazil. A U.S. government analyst, speaking on condition he not be named, said 90 percent of what Iran is seeking from foreign suppliers can be used equally for nuclear weapons and civilian power, providing a ready "cover" for the weapons-related work. Officials said the Iranian shopping list includes nuclear fuel, equipment for handling and processing fissile materials, and nuclear reactors to replace those destroyed in the 1980-88 war with Iraq.

China signed an agreement in June 1990 to provide what it described as a "micro-nuclear reactor" for installation at Esfahan in central Iran. It also has provided training for Iranian nuclear engineers and sent delegations of scientists to Iran, a U.S. government source said.

But the Iranian purchase from China that recently caught U.S. attention involved calutron equipment worth millions of dollars, according to government officials. The equipment is considered capable of producing highly enriched uranium -- a vital component of nuclear weapons -- through a process of electromagnetic isotope separation.

Officials described the equipment as similar to the calutron devices discovered in Iraq last summer during international inspections there. Iraq had been preparing secretly to operate hundreds of the relatively crude devices, leading U.N. experts to estimate that the Baghdad regime could have produced a single nuclear weapon in 12 to 18 months.

The quality of Chinese-made equipment sold to Iran was not sufficient to produce even a single bomb's-worth of enriched uranium, U.S. officials said. But they said the sale amounts to a significant transfer of technology that Iran could readily duplicate.

"You would not use calutrons for a civilian nuclear power program," said Leonard S. Spector, a nuclear proliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace here. "What's disturbing is that the recipient can take such a device and advance rapidly without extensive foreign assistance" in producing a sufficient quantity of enriched uranium for a single bomb.

Several officials said that China's sale of the calutron equipment appeared at odds with routine assurances by Beijing that it neither encourages nor participates in nuclear proliferation, nor provides assistance to other countries in developing nuclear weapons. They said the sale appeared to grow out of the close Iranian-Chinese ties developed during the mid-1980s, when government-affiliated corporations run by family members of senior Chinese

GE 8 PXF504 leaders made huge profits by selling to both sides during the Iran-Iraq war.

(end text)