‘THERE YOU GO AGAIN’: MORE CHINESE PROLIFERATION, MORE CLINTON POLITICIZATION OF INTELLIGENCE

(Washington, D.C.): Today’s Washington Times provides
yet another disturbing example of communist China’s widespread
involvement in the proliferation of militarily-relevant
technologies, including ballistic missiles. A front-page
article by Bill Gertz details a recent assessment by the U.S.
intelligence community which “concluded that Pakistan has
deployed nuclear-capable Chinese M-11 missiles and that the
transfer was part of a conspiracy to skirt missile-control
agreements.”

According to the Times, China’s transfer of
these ballistic missiles to Pakistan is a violation of the
Missile Technology Control Regime and requires, under
U.S. law, the imposition of sanctions against both Pakistan and
China. Unfortunately, although such sanctions are
clearly warranted, the Clinton Administration seems unlikely to
institute them. After all, it was only last month that the
Clinton Administration declined to impose sanctions on China for
transferring to Pakistan devices known as ring magnets used in
the manufacture of nuclear weapons-related materials. href=”96-D56.html#N_1_”>⁽¹⁾ Interestingly, the
recently-uncovered M-11 transfers to Pakistan violate a similar
promise made to Mr. Christopher by the government of China in
October 1994, when Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen agreed to
halt China’s sale of M-11 missiles.

Fool Me Once…

The Washington Times also reported that Allen W.
Locke, an official at the State Department’s Bureau of
Intelligence and Research (I&R), is reportedly working to
“water down” the intelligence assessment. The object of
this exercise is to enable the Clinton Administration to justify
its refusal once again to impose sanctions on China. According to
the Times:

“[William] Triplett, a former U.S. intelligence
official…said he is not surprised by efforts of the State
Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research to block the
M-11 deployment judgement. The bureau is notorious
for politicizing analyses and should be excluded from taking
part in future inter-agency estimates….”
(Emphasis added.)

Unfortunately, the Clinton Administration’s efforts to produce
politically correct intelligence assessments are not limited to
State’s I&R Bureau. Notably, it manipulated the assumptions
upon which a National Intelligence Estimate concerning the
ballistic missile threat to the United States was based in such a
way as to produce a preposterous result — that there would be no
threat of missile attack against this country for at least
fifteen years.⁽²⁾ As
Mr. Clinton’s own first director of the Central Intelligence
Agency, R. James Woolsey, has noted, more realistic assumptions
concerning the nature of and means by which this threat is likely
to develop lead to the conclusion that the United States will be
at risk far sooner.

The Bottom Line

With respect to China and its proliferation practices, the
truth is inescapable: Beijing continues to transfer dangerous
nuclear, ballistic missile and other military technologies to
third parties, at least some of whom (e.g., Iran and North Korea)
are avowed enemies of the United States. As with the NIE,
the unvarnished — if unappetizing — facts should guide U.S.
policy and programs. These must include the prompt deployment of
effective, global defenses against the sorts of shorter- and
longer-range missiles China is wielding for its own “nuclear
blackmail” and making available to others for theirs.

1. See the Center’s Decision Brief
entitled Clinton’s Flim-Flam on Chinese
Proliferation: Even the Washington Post Can’t Conceal
its Contempt (No. 96-C 46,
14 May 1996).

2. For more on this National Intelligence
Estimate, see the Center’s Decision Brief
entitled Smoke and Mirrors: Even by Clinton
Standards, the President’s Misrepresentations on Missile Defense
are Scandalous (No. 96-D 49,
23 May 1996).