Lying for Dollars: Expected Clinton Certification on P.R.C. Proliferation Would Demean U.S., Disserve Its Interests

(Washington, D.C.): Today’s
Washington Post lets the cat out
of the bag: Citing congressional sources
who were briefed last week by a senior
State Department official,⁽¹⁾
President Clinton is preparing to
certify that Communist China “has
stopped exporting nuclear weapons-related
materials to countries such as Pakistan
and Iran.” Such a
certification is being aggressively
promoted by U.S. nuclear power companies
who believe it will clear the last
obstacle keeping them from cashing in on
a Chinese market for their products said
to be worth $60 billion.

‘Fool Me Once…’

Unfortunately, neither the hopes
inspired by Mr. Clinton’s “Good
Housekeeping Seal of Approval” nor
the riches American firms think await
them at the end of China’s nuclear
rainbow are likely to pan out. For one
thing, China is now and will
continue to be one of the most
egregious proliferators on the planet.⁽²⁾
There is no evidence that it has
slackened its nuclear cooperation with
Pakistan — a nation that does not permit
“full-scope” safeguards
required under the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty. Nor has it
given up its involvement in the
aggressive Iranian nuclear program, a
program whose purpose as a cover for
weapons activities is self-evident, given
Teheran’s abundant oil reserves.

No less problematic are the prospects
of American nuclear companies actually
benefitting from China’s potential
requirement for new reactors and related
technology. Even if its ultimate value were
as much as $60 billion, past
Chinese practice suggests that Beijing’s
commitment to self-sufficiency will
sharply limit its actual purchase of
expensive U.S. nuclear power plants.
More likely, the PRC will buy perhaps as
few as one or two American reactors (and
perhaps a few from other foreign
suppliers) with a view to ripping off
their technology — both for the
purpose of supplying China’s domestic
needs and in order to enhance their
international competitiveness. Low wage
rates and a willingness to sell its
products indiscriminately — including to
rogue states — virtually assures that
China will be able, in due course, to
secure a dominant market share in the
nuclear trade.

The Shape of Things to Come

The following are among the likely
repercussions should President Clinton
chose to make the certification to
Congress required pursuant to a 1985
joint resolution concerning the
“U.S.-China Agreement for Nuclear
Cooperation”:

• Such a step would formalize America’s
  willingness to overlook
  activities that are inimical to
  its strategic interests as long
  as some sector of the economy —
  no matter how small — might
  benefit from doing so.
  This message has already been
  telegraphed to some extent by
  recent executive branch decisions
  to delink trade and human rights
  (followed by renewal of Most
  Favored Nation status for China,
  even though delinkage has only
  led to an intensification of
  Beijing’s repressive behavior.)⁽³⁾
  More recently, the U.S. Senate
  showed that the legislative
  branch is also capable of putting
  a few companies’ profits ahead of
  the national interest in voting
  not to impede the sale of
  militarily relevant
  supercomputers even to
  Chinese nuclear weapons
  facilities.⁽⁴⁾

• Still, the effect of the
  President of the United States
  formally confirming that China is
  satisfying U.S. non-proliferation
  requirements — the practical, if
  not literal, meaning of the
  required nuclear cooperation
  certification — can only have
  undesirable consequences for U.S.
  national interests and security. China
  will be emboldened to proceed
  with at least the level and type
  of dual-use nuclear trade in
  which it is currently engaged.
  Worse yet, if, as some are
  suggesting, the President will
  certify to China’s restraint in nuclear
  proliferation even if it
  is still aggressively
  disseminating chemical and
  biological weapons technology and
  that involved in delivering such
  weapons, the effect could be
  to cause the PRC to redouble the
  latter proliferation activities.

• The U.S. nuclear power
  industry will continue to
  atrophy. If American
  companies wind up being denied a
  significant share of the China
  market — reputed to be the last
  great sales opportunity for
  nuclear power suppliers⁽⁵⁾
  — they will either shift into
  other fields of endeavor, whither
  away or be bought out. For
  example, some experts believe
  that in the event Westinghouse’s
  nuclear reactor division actually
  gets to sell China a reactor or
  two, it may be promptly purchased
  by FRAMATOM, the French nuclear
  power conglomerate that a
  generation ago ripped off the
  same American company’s light
  water reactor design. The net
  result would be little, if
  any, benefit to the U.S.
  economy and labor force.

The Bottom Line

The Casey Institute of the Center for
Security Policy believes that the
United States requires a healthy nuclear
power industry. The Nation’s
current dependency on imported oil for
approximately 50% of its needs is a
national security disaster waiting to
happen. And the looming block
obsolescence of its existing nuclear
energy infrastructure — which currently
supplies 8% of total U.S. daily
consumption — means that, unless steps
are promptly taken to prepare, certify
and bring on-line safe, modern
replacement reactors, America will become
still more vulnerable to threats, or
actual interruptions of, its overseas oil
supplies.

The obvious solution to the legitimate
need to maintain a viable American
nuclear energy industry — without
compromising the Nation’s security
interests by selling reactors to China —
is to embark upon a major public
education and infrastructure upgrade
program. The objective of such a program
would be ensure that advanced designs for
fail-safe nuclear reactors are built to
serve the largest energy market of all, that
of the United States.⁽⁶⁾

Naturally, under present
circumstances, such an initiative would
take enormous leadership, political
capital and courage on the part of the
President and Vice President. Given
their intense concerns about the effects
of fossil fuel emissions on global
warming, however, a program to bring
about a new generation of clean-burning
nuclear power for the 21^st
Century may be the only hope for
containing — to say nothing of reducing
— greenhouse gas emissions without
savaging the American economy.

In this way, the Clinton
Administration can accomplish a
“three-fer” involving what it
maintains are some of its highest
priorities: curbing proliferation,
promoting American businesses and
reducing greenhouse gas emissions. By
contrast, its China deal will exacerbate
proliferation, have little if any benefit
for the U.S. economy and ensure that any
future cuts in emissions that might
affect the environment come at great
expense to the Nation’s economic growth.
Congress should ensure the latter course
of action does not eventuate, even if the
President opts for it.

– 30 –

1. The official in
question is Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State Robert Einhorn. For more on his
present and prospective role, see the
Center’s Decision Brief
released earlier today entitled Clinton
Legacy Watch # 6: Crises Involving
U.S.-Russian Space ‘Cooperation’ Show
Clinton-Gore Errors, Need for Changes
(No. 97-D 139).

2. An unclassified
assessment of the extent of Beijing’s
systematic and ongoing effort to
market weapons of mass destruction and
their delivery systems to some of the
world’s most dangerous nations can be
found in the current volume of The
Middle East Quarterly. The article,
entitled “China Arms the
Rogues,” was written by Center for
Security Policy Director Frank J.
Gaffney, Jr. and provides a
country-by-country assessment of the
“matches” China persists in
throwing into the Mideast tinderbox.

3. See the Casey
Institute’s Perspective
entitled Non-Renewal of
M.F.N. for China: A Proportionate
Response to Beijing’s Emerging,
Trade-Subsidized Strategic Threat
(No. 97-C 76, 9
June 1997).

4. See the
Center’s Decision Brief
entitled What’s Good for
Silicon Graphics Is Not Necessarily Good
for America: Some Supercomputer Sales
Imperil U.S. Security ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-D_102″>No. 97-D 102, 21
July 1997).

5. This conclusion
derives from the perception that other
markets will either remain closed to U.S.
companies (in order to protect domestic
manufacturers of reactors and related
nuclear equipment and materials) or
non-existent in deference to pervasive
nuclear phobia and/or cost
considerations. The latter condition, it
is assumed, will continue to apply in the
United States, itself.

6. For more on
such “accident proof” reactor
designs, see the Center’s Decision
Brief entitled Strategic
Meltdown at Savannah River: Time to
Revisit Watkins’ Tritium Decisions
(No. 92-D 2,
6 January 1992).