America: a Beacon, not a Policeman	10 Arguments for China Trade and WTO Entry	Americans Against World Empire  Homepage

Answering Conservatives Opposed to China Trade & WTO Membership—10 Points

                                                                                     by Jon Basil Utley

1)       CHARGE--China has a communist government with a record of religious persecution and political repression and killed its own people at Tiananmen Square.

ANSWER—To call it  “communist” today is a travesty for the tens of millions of human beings who died under what Lenin called “war communism”  and its successor regimes.  A country with private property rights, freedom to travel, to emigrate, with a consumer culture, with millions of cell phones and internet connections, with freedom to start a business or move from job to job is on its way to having political freedoms.  It’s following the best, tried and true model towards freedom and prosperity, that of Chile, Taiwan, Hong Kong and others with an authoritarian government, maintaining order, while allowing the wonders of the marketplace to work their magic.  First they bring about prosperity and, later, political freedoms.   Also, if Chinese freedom was the real concern of those protectionists, trade union bosses and their environmentalist allies, then why were so many of them also against NAFTA and free trade with Mexico.  Even if China’s government was a paragon of virtue, they’d still be against trade.   As Mexico has prospered, so has its political system become more democratic. Just as we should want a prosperous Mexico for a neighbor, so should we want a prosperous China for stability in Asia.

2)       CHARGE—They must be communist because they call themselves “communists.”

ANSWER—Every government tries to show continuity with its predecessor to give itself legitimacy.  In medieval times the expression was, “The King is dead, long live the King,” meaning the new king.  Dictatorships, in spite of our images of Stalin and Hitler, are essentially weak governments because they don’t have legitimacy.  For example, in Russia just prior to communism’s collapse, subway and bus fares were pennies, and the government lost millions subsidizing them.  When leaving Russia in 1989,  I visited Finland.  There a bus ride cost nearly a dollar.  That’s the difference between a weak or a strong government.  Finland had a legitimate democracy.  In China the government maintains stability by claiming continuity and therefore legitimacy, even as it dismantles communism and promotes free markets.  Claiming it is still “communist” allows it to pre-empt the still powerful communist minority of government bureaucrats, many of whom are fighting against the economic and political reforms which curtail their power.  Also the government is not monolithic.   Part of the abuses of religious and human rights come from local authorities abusing power without the cental govenment's approval.

3)      CHARGE—Free trade means the loss of American jobs and too much cultural interchange with 3^rd World foreigners.

ANSWER—Our current prosperity and labor shortages are proof of how untrue the job argument is.  We have far more high paying, interesting jobs, and growing demand for labor than ever before. Our exports are a big reason for this. But foreigners must sell to us in order to buy from us.  We can’t sell them our high paying hi-tech services and goods if they aren’t allowed to sell us their, usually low-tech, products.  It was international competition which broke the monopoly power of big unions and big business.  It is trade which brings us so much benefit in low cost goods and high paying jobs.  For example, there are many more high paying jobs for Americans from designing, promoting, financing, transporting and selling sneakers for a world wide market than from manufacturing them ourselves for just a domestic market.

 Yes, we do have a trade deficit, but mainly it is in oil and that is because of the political decisions not to drill for more in Alaska and off our Pacific and Atlantic coasts. Also the trade deficit is partly offset by foreigners using their dollars to invest in America’s constantly expanding supply of stocks and real estate.   Free trade has helped bring peace and prosperity to much of the world and to expand political freedoms as ideas follow trade.  Protectionism in the 1930’s made the world depression worse and helped bring about World War II.   Never mind the theory, the proof is shown every day in our prosperity and the low costs of many consumer items.  REASON Magazine (8/00) quotes Congressman Ed Royce about why free trade is so hard to “sell.”   His reply, “It took Adam Smith a generation to convince the British Empire that mercantilism wasn’t in its interest.   We’ve had the same resistance even with the evidence right before our eyes: the lowest unemployment numbers and the greatest creation of wealth in recent U.S. history.” 

As far as cultural interchange, all Christians should be happy that free markets and trade are bringing, for the first time,  a bit of prosperity and hope to billions of human beings who lived for generations in abject misery.   Almost in biblical terms we benefit in prosperity as the poorest of the world are uplifted too.

On the question of cultural interchange, the accusation is partly true.  But cutting America off from much of the world would leave us isolated and eventually threatened.   It is America that has the “strongest” culture in the world.  Most of the world’s poor want to be more like us.  We should not feel threatened because of some influence of their cultures.  Latin music and Chinese food have enriched our culture.  And certainly, the rest of the world has strong family values.

4)      CHARGE—China is updating its nuclear weapons and selling military technology to America’s enemies. 

ANSWER---China has less than 20 single warhead nuclear missiles from the 1960’s.  Yes, it began to upgrade its military after America’s war on Iraq and the showing of our overwhelming military power and readiness to use it. "China's research and training efforts are largely defensive measures centerered on countering" American technology used in the Iraq and Kosovo wars, according to the Pentagon report cited below. Also remember we have a fleet sailing just off China’s coast able to blow every one of its major cities to smithereens.  What would we be doing if China had such a fleet off our Atlantic coast?

 “PENTAGON SEES CHINA FORCES AS NO FORESEEABLE THREAT TO U.S." was the headline about the recent Pentagon study in the NEW YORK TIMES, 6/23.  But many conservatives only hear a different message.  The same report was headlined the same day in the WASHINGTON TIMES as "CHINA IS PREPARING FOR HIGH-TECH WAR WITH U.S."   Many of us are not getting a fair picture, because Washington is a War Party town; it thrives on creating conflict and the fear of conflict.  Trade is the business of New York.  War is a main “businesses” of Washington.  Just think how the politicians, news networks and reporters, Think Tanks, and military/industrial officials all prosper when there is war.  “War is the health of the State,” goes an old saying.  Republican foreign policy is also dominated by a group called “neo-Conservatives,” who want America to "rule the world." They are particularly strong in Washington.

             All nations have a legitimate right to defend themselves and America has now attacked and decimated two nations, which did us no harm, and invaded various others, such as Panama and Haiti.  And of course we bombed a Chinese embassy.  We must distinguish between other nations’ rights to self defense as opposed to their being an aggressive threat to our interests.

As far as selling weapons to other nations, it is the United States that is the biggest seller by tens of billions of dollars of weapons to foreigners.  Iran, Libya, and such may have horrible governments, but they are only enemies of ours, not Europe’s or Asia’s.  From a moral point of view there’s no difference in our selling missiles to the Saudi dictators or China to the Iranians.   Not all the world is going to kow-tow to our demands.  Our attacks on Serbia and NATO expansion in East Europe have frightened both China and Russia and they are now working together on weapons developments.  The question of China’s help for Pakistan’s nuclear program is serious, although not directed against America.  Pakistan is China’s balance of power ally against India.  Still, America will have more influence over China’s nuclear exports if it is a trade partner than if it tries to isolate China.  An isolated China would have real incentives to spread weapons all over the world.

5)        CHARGE—China’s (Russia too?) just fooling us to get militarily strong and then they (or a resurgent communism) will be a threat to us again.

ANSWER---"No tyranny lasts a hundred years," is an old Confucian  saying.  The Communists in Russia nearly made it, but communism is gone.   During the last years of communism I used to argue on the Voice of America that no one believed in it, they just thought it was the winning side.  After 1989, that belief disappeared and communism as a threat was finished.

Defeat of Allende in Chile by Pinochet and then Reagan's policies ended the string of communist victories.  Without them, the system collapsed.   Stalin and Mao Tse Tung were creatures who got power after wars.  Those who most fear their reincarnations are the very officials in former communist nations who saw their earlier brethren incarcerated in the camps.  The last thing any of the nomenklatura want is a strong dictator who could threaten their own security and positions.  All governments need legitimacy to stay in power. For communists, supposed threats from foreign powers were always the main justification for their dictatorships from Stalin’s time to Fidel Castro today.  Even dictatorships need some justification for legitimacy, and today in China that reason is providing stability and bringing about economic freedom and prosperity for its people. Certainly, however, we should control with a licensing system all militarily related high tech exports.  This rule should apply to nearly every other nation in the world as well.

6)          CHARGE---Trade with America props up the Chinese dictators.  The accusation, carried by WorldNetDaily.com and described in Howard Phillips’ ISSUES & STRATEGY BULLETIN (3/15) quotes a dissident, “Angry jobless farmers staged a record 2,000 riots against local communist authorities.  The unrest comes as China’s unemployment rate hits a 30-year high….Such internal pressures are the real reason Beijing want to lock in trade favors with the U.S.,” says dissident Wei Jingsheng, the father of China’s democracy movement.  "It desperately needs money…to smash uprisings…..The communist regime is losing control over the masses……to boost sagging demand in the cities communist leaders are planning to move 300 million peasants into cities and towns…..."

ANSWERS---Yes, China’s transition from communism to free markets means dislocations and unemployment.  So there were riots?  More proof that it’s not “communist.”  Since when did communist governments have riots?  Under “communism” every rioter and his family would be killed or imprisoned for years.  That’s also the whole point of China’s agreement with the U.S. to abide by WTO (World Trade Association) rules and stop subsidizing money losing state industries.  And since when did a “communist” government need American money “to smash uprisings?”  Even the poorest African dictator easily does that.  “Losing control over the masses?”  Yes, isn’t that what America wants?  300 million peasants to the cities?  Yes, and that’s what most peasants in the world want, to move to the cities.

             Also trade opens up countries.  Just remember when Stalin refused to accept Marshall Plan aid for Eastern Europe.   He feared that such trade would weaken the hold of communism’s dictatorship.  He was right as part of the reason communism eventual collapse was it’s large trade with Western Europe which opened Russians’ eyes to Western prosperity compared to their own misery  Howard Phillips again argued (I&S Bulletin, 12/31/98) that Lenin’s New Economic Policy in 1923 (which allowed economic freedoms) did not eradicate communism in Russia.  But it was going to!  That’s why Stalin erased it after 1928 and went back to state socialism.  This is not happening in China.  In fact the whole point about China joining the WTO is that it strengthens the hands of reformers to continue with the change over to free markets and the dismantling of state industries.  

    China’s entrance into the WTO and the agreement worked out with Washington is all about opening up China to foreign competition and dismantling China’s statism; it’s to help American exports to China; it’s not about U.S. imports from China.  Corruption, delays, and lack of enforcement of agreements by the (weak) central government will make for many problems in WTO implementation, but Chinese membership helps U.S. businesses to penetrate the market by giving it recourse through WTO rules and openness.  American government and IMF "aid" usually allowed government to avoid real reforms, but private investment and trade trigger evolvement of a rule of law and individual freedoms.  As CATO's Steve Moore said to me about China,  "Freedom creates its own momentum."

7)        CHARGE---Communist China is taking over the Panama Canal and maybe Panama too.

ANSWER---Hutchison-Whampoa is the largest professional port management company in the world.  It also manages three of the largest ports in England.  In Panama shippers who don’t want to use the company can use a competitor, according to a WALL STREET JOURNAL report at the time of the furor.   Panama even recognizes Taiwan rather than Red China as the legitimate government of China. What Panama does do is play off the two China's against each other to get aid and benefits.  The idea that China could “take over Panama” is preposterous for anyone who knows Latin Americans.  And for what benefit?  In fact most American trade through Panama today is bulk agricultural goods from the Mid West, often being exported to China. In fact, China is the third biggest used of the canal and one-third of 99's $4 billion of exports to the Colon free zone come from China and Hong Kong.   America’s high tech exports and services today go by air or even by telephone lines.  And why do we need military bases there?  So we can bomb in Latin America?  They are obsolete.  The days of invading Latin American nations should be over.  Anyway Washington today can destroy any nation in the world with missiles, while aircraft carriers give it a global reach.

8)       CHARGE--China has stolen our military secrets and bribed high officials in Washington.

ANSWER---Certainly China tries to gain all the military and technical knowledge it can.  The spy cases, however, are very confusing, while being fanned into flames by various interested parties and Washington's panic "to do something."   The main case, the Lee case, is not at all clear, and now the government's case appears to have collapsed with the FBI agent in charge admitting he lied (NEW YORK TIMES 8/18) and the supposed secrets having been nothing vital.  Now the government says he may have offered the "secrets" to American allies as well, because he was job hunting.   For wrap up see NEW YORK TIMES 8/29 op-ed. (http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39ac4d623c13.htm)   Also see China Spy Scandal that Never Was --LA TIMES--Answering Cox Report  (http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a387168fe10da.htm).  

    Also former Republican Sen. Warren Rudman, chairman of the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, which reviewed the espionage allegations last year, said in an interview last week, 'It is my belief that there was no espionage' involved with the W-88 (America's latest nuclear bomb).  As far as China's new, smaller warhead, Rudman said, 'What they did, they did on their own.'"(WASH. POST 9/18/00)

       As far as bribing in Washington, yes Washington’s foreign policy is corrupt (because most Americans don't care, so money is the way to "buy" it).  China was the last kid on the block to try to influence Washington.  It just tried to do with money what other nations do with more sophistication, but was extremely clumsy at it.   Also America has never been able to keep secrets and we never will, unless we become a police state society.  Our strength rather comes from our freedoms and gaining the most brilliant scientists from the whole world to come to live here.  Long ago is was German Jews who created the nuclear bomb.  Today it is Indians and Chinese who fill up Silicon Valley with new businesses and inventions.

9)       CHARGE--China is Going to Invade Taiwan.

ANSWER--China has no ability to launch amphibious forces to "take" Taiwan.  Taiwan even has much superior aircraft (F-16's) and trained pilots compared to those of China (The NEW YORK TIMES, 8/4, details Taiwan's superiority). 

    Above all China and Taiwan have tremendous trade.   Taiwan exported $25 Billion to China last year and its firms have $40 Billion invested in China already (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 8/3).  Indeed Taiwan is planning to ease up on investment restrictions in China by its corporations (now limited to $50 million per project) and citizens.  Taiwan's democratically elected government supports the normalization of trade between the U.S. and the Red Chinese. As the folks on the front line, and in light of the fact that this government was elected despite Chinese saber-rattling with missile tests, etc., that they support open trade with the mainland is very significant.  The furor between them is a lot of rhetoric and China's fear of separatism by other provinces.  Washington should help them to work out their differences, not be egged on by the War Party which wants conflict.  The answer for China and all large nations is federalism with lots and lots of local autonomy.  Washington does have an obligation to defend Taiwan from outright attack.  However, equally "American
policies  must  also  discourage  Taiwan  from  provoking   a
military  reaction   from  the   mainland,  whether   through
reckless steps  towards independence, more subtle efforts to
establish de facto statehood, or continued rejection of even
reasonable conditions  for resuming an official cross-strait
dialogue," (from study by Avery Goldstein U.S. POLICY TOWARD CHINA: TRY FOR THE BEST, PREPARE FOR THE WORST (www.fpri.org)

10)       CHARGE—“Chinese Reds are Winning the Trade War with U.S.”  (Howard Phillips I&S 1/15/00)

ANSWER—Trade is not  “war.”  Rather it’s a three way street where everybody wins with one country’s surpluses being used to buy with a third country’s trade deficits.  We may buy more from China than it sells us, but then it uses the money earned from such sales to buy from other nations which then use their earnings to buy more from us.  Also 80% of China’s imports are incorporated into manufactured goods, which are then re-exported to the industrialized world.  Only 20% of China’s imports actually are consumed in China.  (from 1997 study by the Federal Reserve Bank in New York).  Also many imports from China just replaced those from other Asian countries which now have higher production costs.  Similarly with Mexico, many of our imports are from factories there which replaced higher cost or less accessible Asian ones.

CONCLUSION     America's role should be not in bombing, blockading, starving, and  sanctioning small nations, nor in sending troops to make provocation all over the world, for example marines to the Crimea and paratroopers to Kazakhstan.  Trade and international prosperity are the ways to minimize future conflicts.  As Paul Krugman writes (N.Y. TIMES 7/5), "Those of us who believe that globalization..........tends to promote freedom, have another success story to add to the list-----Mexico.....When a nation opens to the world, its businesses become less dependent on government favor, its citizens become more aware of how politics is conducted in advanced countries.  The result, repeatedly has been a peaceful transition to true democracy." 

    On the moral questions Father Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute writes in the WALL STREET JOURNAL, 7/5) "Human rights problems in a totalitarian countries are not best addressed through sanctions and protectionism.....In my visits to both China and Cuba, I never encountered a citizen who hoped for less--as opposed to more--contact with the U.S."  Equally a Heritage Foundation Report, How Trade with China Benefits Americans argues, "People who support freedom and democracy in China--indeed some of Beijing's harshest critics....strongly support permanent U.S. extension of Normal Trade Relations."  China is evolving in a very positive way.  Let's help it along.

For more information on China trade issues see http://www.freetrade.org          For Political/Spying/Missile reports and analyses see http://www.againstbombing.com/#CHINA , also THE BLUE TEAM--Washington's Lobby for Conflict with China.

Mr. Utley is the Robert A. Taft Scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute.  He graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and lived many years in many foreign nations, first in business and then as a foreign correspondent.   He lived in Cuba when Castro seized power and in Peru when it had a military dictatorship.   He was a commentator for the Voice of America for 15 years.  He has been on the Board of Directors or Advisory Boards of many conservative and anti-communist organizations.  

Addendum  --China Spying & Technology

Memo To: Joseph Lelyveld, NYT executive editor
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: Those Chinese Spies

    I think you have to step in at this point, Joe, and rescue your newspaper
from the China "spy" story. From the first moment I laid eyes on Jeff Gerth’
s page-one story, I knew you had been flim-flammed by Richard Perle, the
Chief Strategist for the Anti-China coalition. He may not have been the
fellow who put the story into Gerth’s ear directly, but its origin surely
was from Perle. I know his work, as we were allies all during the Cold War.
It was his job, dating back to his job with Sen. Henry (Scoop) Jackson, to
dream up lies that could be told in order to help win the Cold War. He is a
Master of Deceit. Until the late Albert Wohlstetter died a few years ago, he
still was Albert’s protégé, as was Paul Wolfowitz. Now that Albert is gone,
Richard is the chief strategist for the right-wing of the Political
Establishment. Actually, he is probably the most dangerous man in the world
at the moment, as he is also directing the campaign against Yugoslavia on
behalf of his plans to make NATO the military arm of the new American
Imperium. I bet you didn’t know that. You’re not supposed to, except that I
am being a meanie and blowing Richard’s cover.

The reason he had the China story fed to your man Gerth, of course, was that
it could not come from Richard’s pals at my old newspaper, The Wall Street
Journal, or it would have appeared as so much right-wing baloney directed at
the President. Once Gerth bit and you put the story on Page One, your
editorial page of course had to offer support, and Howell Raines, your
editor, fell into line. The original intent was meant to embarrass the
pro-China folks inside the administration on the eve of the visit of Zhu
Rongji, but Perle’s flim-flams have a way of flowering beyond original
intent. This one, in combination with the chess game he is playing in the
Balkans, could of course flower into World War III. Like the Sorcerer’s
Apprentice, Perle does not know how to stop the deluge once it occurs, and
the Sorcerer, Professor Wohlstetter, is no longer among us.

Gerth is a babe in the woods in this matter, I’m afraid. The Los Alamos
scientist he fingered to get this story going, Mr. Lee, is not even a
nuclear scientist. He is a computer scientist. He wouldn’t know what to
steal. The nuclear scientists I know have been laughing all the way at the
silly mistakes Gerth has been making. For example, not knowing the
difference between (a) a LLNL-type "zero-fission fusion" weapon and (b) a
LANL-type "enhanced radiation" weapon. Perle of course knows nothing of
nuclear science, so he generally screws up his story in this realm. He is
also Bill Safire’s main man, which is why Safire’s columns about the China
spies are always replete with error. Safire doesn’t even know the difference
between analog and digital. You should know (and tell Howell Raines) that
nobody around the President understands any of this.

Bill Richardson, the former congressman and friend-of-Bill’s who is now the hapless Energy Secretary, on Meet the Press ADMITTED that secrets have been given out on Clinton’s watch, EVEN THOUGH HE HAS NO EVIDENCE THAT ANY HAVE BEEN.
    Richardson spent his brief tenure at the United Nations telling lies about
Iraq on behalf of the President and now has to make up lies about Chinese
espionage agents when he can’t figure out what to say to Tim Russert at NBC.
Poor guy. He should resign and run for Congress again, where the lies have
less immediate impact. There is no evidence that any secrets have gone out,
Joe. Gerth is now backing up his non-story, for which no doubt he will win
another Pulitzer Prize, by citing "secrets" that were transmitted to Beijing
not in the good old-fashioned way, surreptitiously, but at a lecture in a
Beijing lecture hall. The front page of the Times should not be cause for
hilarity, Joe, so you should stop Gerth before he strikes again. My nuclear
scientist friends tell me that the topic of the lecture was harmless, but
that Perle has blown it up to mammoth proportions, by saying what the
Chinese learned could enable them to track down our nuclear submarines. I’m
at least happy to see that William Broad, one of your science writers,
taking care to note "the implications of the disclosure are unclear, because
the size of the breach is unknown publicly and because the secret method is
reportedly difficult to put into practice, even after years of study." The
headline of course makes it appear that all is lost: "U.S. Loses Control on
Submarine-Exposing Radar Techniques." My, my.

I just read Max Frankel’s marvelous new book, about his Life at the Times.
He remembers that when he and Scotty Reston used to get calls from the White
House asking them not to print stuff, they always got the country into
trouble when they agreed to do so. In this case, you should think twice
before you print any more baloney fed to you by Perle and his flim-flammers.
This is all the result of Clinton’s "triangulation," by the way. Dick Morris
taught him to be just a little less ferocious than the Gingrich/Dole
Republicans, and his approval rating would be high. This is how Perle has
trapped the NYTimes. He is the chief foreign policy advisor to George W.
Bush, who over the weekend said he would, if President, prosecute the war
against Yugoslavia "ferociously." That is Perle’s way of permitting the
President to prosecute the war "almost ferociously." There is of course
public opposition to the war, as evidenced by the House of Representatives
voting against the campaign two weeks ago. The flim-flam man gets around
that by spreading the story that conservative Republicans, as opposed to
Perle’s warriors, are out to make this "Clinton’s War," and are happy to
deny him the ability to send in 50,000 ground troops for that reason.

If the national interest is to be served, the Times must at least assign a
reporter to clean up after Jeff Gerth. I’ve always admired Gerth’s
doggedness, but he is out of his league when dealing with these characters.
Is there anyone at the Times who knows a nuclear scientist? If so, he or she
may be your man, or woman. And tell Jeff Gerth to watch out for Perles of
wisdom, which should only be cast before swine.

P.S. In addition to George W. Bush, Safire and the WSJ editpage, among those
who do not make a move without Perle, are George Will, Maggie Thatcher, Bill
Kristol, Jesse Helms, and a gaggle of other tough cookies in high places.
Among the Republicans, Dan Quayle and Jack Kemp have not been snookered.
Quayle has opposed NATO’S bombing campaign from the beginning, but the
readers of the Times don’t know that. They should.

*****

May 12, 1999

Connecting What China Dots?

Memo To: Joseph Lelyveld, NYT Executive Editor
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: Those Bad Chinese Spies

In my memo to you yesterday, I made the polemical argument that Timesman
Jeff Gerth had been snookered by the anti-China coalition that operates
inside the Beltway. Gerth has been a great investigative reporter in his
years at the Times, but he is no match for Richard Perle, a Master of
Deceit, who is ex officio chairman of the anti-China coalition. China may,
of course, have "pried" nuclear secrets out of our National Laboratories,
but there thusfar is no evidence that Gerth has presented that they have, at
least anytime since the end of our Cold War with Beijing. Nor is there any
"evidence" that they paid for secrets they did not get with an alleged
$300,000 that a Chinese businessman got from the head of military
intelligence in Beijing, with no receipt! The story would be laughable, if
it were not doing exactly what the Perle Gang intends -- total disruption of
our relations with China in order to prevent Beijing from becoming strong
enough to be an adversary anytime in the next century. The Times has been
manipulated and still does not realize how it has happened. The following is
a report I got from a very old friend who is a nuclear scientist with ties
to the national labs, at which he once labored as a Ph.D. physicist. The
friend, who prefers to remain anonymous for the moment, has been following
this story from the beginning. I’ve received several dozen reports from him
in the last two months and forwarded most to a few Senate Republicans who
have remained suspicious of the stories. Their problem is that they know as
little about nuclear science as does your Jeff Gerth. The report is in the
form of an answer to a question I put to my old friend, the Ph.D. physicist.

Q. I see even Tony Snow saying flatly that China has gotten secrets from us.
Have you seen anything so far to persuade you that YOU KNOW they have gotten
stuff from us? Everything I have received from you thus far indicates we do
not know what went out the door. The big espionage crisis that has been
driven by Jeff Gerth of the NYT now has come down to the labs being too
porous, not that anything really valuable has gotten through the pores. My
assumption is that if China wanted secrets from us, they would have to take
the initiative and find a willing American to pass stuff on. It does not
seem unreasonable to me that the Lab-to-Lab exchanges with Beijing were
designed to get useful information from them, just as we have been doing
with the Russians. Has there been, though, anything you can see that has
given them the kind of information which reduces our national security ?

A. Since all I know about what the PRC may have gotten from Chinese-American
U.S. citizens -- duly cleared by the FBI -- working at Lawrence Livermore
National Lab (LLNL) and Los Alamos NL (LANL) -- is what I read in the news
columns of The Washington Post, The New York Times and the LA Times, and
since the people writing those media reports are so confused about what they
are writing, it is impossible for me to even guess what the PRC might have
gotten. The only thing I can say for sure is that the media reports of what
they got cannot possibly be right. And in publishing as fact, "insider"
information leaked to them that cannot possibly be true, they have in this
way done a lot of damage to U.S. National Security, to the reputation and
effectiveness of LLNL and LANL, to the reputation of the Directors and
scientists at those Labs, and above all, to the Chinese-American community.

The importance of whatever it is the PRC may have gotten from the Labs,
aided and abetted by the Clinton Administration policy of "make nice with
the PRC Weapons Labs," is completely overshadowed by the damage done to U.S.
National security by the savaging -- as a direct result of the hysterical
reports of what the PRC may have gotten from the Labs -- of the
Nunn-Lugar-Domenici U.S.-Russian cooperative nuclear proliferation
prevention programs.

In the first place, I doubt very much that modern day "secrets," especially
technology-related "secrets," are the sort of thing that can be stolen by a
"spy". The spy-thief has to know too much in order to know what to steal and
the person for which the secret is stolen has to know almost as much about
the programs that led to the discovery of the "secret" to make any use of
the stolen secret. If the PRC was in fact trying to pry secrets from the
U.S., the best hope would be to somehow cause to be established a climate
within the U.S. wherein Chinese-Americans could convince themselves that
what they were doing with respect to the PRC was what their U.S. countrymen
wanted them to do. Now the vultures of the Clinton Administration
"Engagement" policy between the U.S. Weapons Labs and their PRC counterparts
are coming home to roost. The tragedy -- brought on by media
misinformation -- is that they are not roosting at the White House, where
they belong, but at the Weapons Labs.

Neutron bomb

As an example of misleading "insider fact" by the media, consider the
"reporting" about the "theft" of the "neutron bomb." There are at least two
very different weapon concepts that have been under development at the U.S.
Weapons Labs that could come under the heading "neutron bomb." (There are
also at least two different weapon concepts that could come under the
heading "enhanced radiation device") None of the media reports I have seen
of the gaggle of things they are calling the "neutron bomb" resemble even
slightly any of those concepts semi-properly labeled the "neutron bomb." The
media types are hopelessly confused about what a "neutron bomb" is. How
could they possibly accurately report on its 'theft' if they don't know what
it is? (In fact, they are so confused they sometimes use "neutron bomb" and
"enhanced radiation device" interchangeably.)

In earlier media reports this year, it was stated to be uncontested fact
that a Chinese-American physicist (Peter Lee) at LLNL was fired in 1981 for
having admitted giving (in the late 70s) the PRC the "secret" of the LLNL
"neutron bomb." We were told that we discovered this treachery (by a U.S.
citizen duly "cleared" by the FBI) when the PRC successfully tested their
version of the neutron bomb in 1981. Now, this Sunday, the media-types tell
us that PRC did not test the LLNL "neutron bomb" until 1988 and the test was
unsuccessful. The media-types also now allege that the PRC then tried to
penetrate LANL (not LLNL) in 1995 to find out more about the
still-not-yet-successfully-tested U.S. version of the "neutron bomb."

Now, in Gerth's latest piece, although he still doesn't seem to "get it,"
one can divine that the LLNL technology U.S. citizen Peter Lee apparently
admitted giving to the PRC back in the late 70s, had to do with the LLNL
Laser-Fusion project, and had nothing to do with the LLNL "neutron bomb."
With the real LLNL "neutron bomb" there was at least the hope that, if it
could be made to work in the "Lab," it might be something that could be
"weaponized" (for example, as a warhead having 10-100 tons of heavy
explosive -- HE -- equivalent). But what Peter Lee actually seems to have
been working on at LLNL was the development of high-powered lasers to be
used to compress a DT pellet in DOE's major project to control fusion, first
in the Lab, and then in some sort of a commercial power plant.

There was no possibility that this immense laser-fusion project at LLNL
could ever be "weaponized." The only reason that DOE-LLNL controlled
laser-fusion project operations were ever "secret" in the first place was
because the same sort of "hydro-codes" used in thermonuclear weapon
development (the kind of "Lagrangian" codes that William Safire got
hopelessly confused about and that LANL Chinese-American Wen Ho Lee was
initially alleged to have given the PRC), were also used to predict the
implosive effects of the multiple-beam high powered laser pulses on the DT
pellets!!

So, although the laser-fusion project was "secret" in the late 70s when LLNL
Lee gave the PRC details about what he was doing as a developer of
high-powered lasers, what he was doing at LLNL was not secret and I gather
he was fired for divulging "trade secrets" not "classified" information.
(TRW, where the LLNL Lee later worked, according to Gerth et al.,) -- and
was presumably cleared by the FBI to work there after being fired from
LLNL -- is also in the business of developing high-powered pulsed lasers,
but for Star Wars, not "controlled fusion." The U.S. Navy Technology that
Peter Lee is now alleged by Gerth to have given the PRC while at TRW is
obviously not radar, since Lee is a laser expert, but is probably blue-green
LIDAR which penetrates the ocean to some considerable depth and has been
previously used for communicating with underwater submarines.)

Although the initial claims by the media that a LLNL scientist gave the PRC
the "secret" of the "neutron bomb" way back in the Reagan Years have turned
out to be absolutely false, those claims are still flying about and appeared
in Tony Snow's latest column. (Pray God they do not appear in the Cox
Committee Report; they will taint it.) Meanwhile, the reputation of LLNL and
its scientists and engineers is in the toilet and recriminations and
reprisals fill the air.

W-88 "size and shape"

Gerth et al claim that a PRC defector gave (1995?) the FBI a PRC weapons
manual which included the "secret" of the "size and shape" of the W-88.
(Tony Snow, et al., claim that some LANL scientist gave the PRC the
"blueprint" for the W-88 !) But what might be "secret" about the size and
shape of the W-88? The W-88 has been designed by LANL to fit within one of
the MIRVed reentry vehicle (RV) developed by the Navy for its Trident-II
missiles. As "seen on TV" and in various movies, the size and shape of that
RV is well known, and it is shaped like a very large but very pointy
"nutty-buddy" ice cream cone.

It follows that the size and shape of the W-88 also has to be somewhat
cone-like, with the front end much smaller in diameter than the rear. And
although that is the optimum shape for the RV, it is not the optimum shape
for the W-88 and so various trade-offs and compromises must have been made
in the warhead design to fit it in the RV. But that has been the case for
all warheads designed by LANL-LLNL for Polaris-Poseidon-Trident missile RVs,
except that the RVs were not always so pointy. So the only "secret" is that
LANL has somehow managed to design a very pointy warhead that must work, or
it wouldn’t be deployed on all those Trident subs. But my guess is that it
wouldn't do you much good to have even a blueprint of the W-88 -- whose
design suffers from having to fit within that RV -- if you didn't need a
warhead to fit inside a very pointy RV. That is, the technology behind the
Trident-RV development would be more valuable to the PRC than the W-88
blueprint.

W-88-like Reaction History

Gerth, et al., have reported that Los Alamos physicists somehow monitored a
PRC test conducted circa 1995 and were stunned to note the similarity in the
Reaction History of the PRC device to that of the W-88. They further claim
that the W-88 is a revolutionary design, a "miniaturized" warhead, and that
its Reaction History is, therefore, unique. Thus, the claim has been made
that someone at LANL has "sold the farm" to the PRC, sold them the
culmination -- the crown jewel -- of 50 years of R&D. For the reason given
above, namely that the W-88 had to be designed to fit in the Trident-II RVs,
it clearly is not the best LANL could do when it comes to designing nuclear
weapons not subject to that "nutty-buddy" constraint.

I therefore presume (but do not know) that the W-88 is an evolutionary,
rather than a revolutionary, design and that it's Reaction History is not
all that unique. If it had been revolutionary, as the media types claim,
then every weapon systems Program Manager in the Pentagon would have been
demanding that the revolutionary LANL technology be applied to His weapons
system. But nobody else needs or wants a nuclear weapon whose design has
been compromised by the requirement that it fit within a very pointy RV,
except those nations not already having MIRV capability, but seeking to
obtain it. The PRC, for example. But first, the PRC has got to get the MIRV
technology before the W-88 "blueprint" -- even if they had it -- will do
them any good. If I really believed that the PRC has had the "W-88" since
1995 -- as the Clinton Administration apparently does -- then instead of
beating LANL about the head and shoulders and locking all the barn doors in
sight, I would concentrate on stopping the PRC from getting MIRV technology
(if the Clinton Administration hasn't already inadvertently given it to them
in their various satellite launching capers).

LANL "Legacy Files"

Before and after LANL Computer Scientist Wen Ho Lee was "fired" by DOE
Secretary Richardson, he was accused by the media types of a lot of very
different and probably traitorous activities. They seem to be as confused
about the use of computer codes in the design of nuclear weapons as they
have been about the "neutron bomb" and "enhanced radiation device" and
"Lagragnian Codes" and "radar" and "LIDAR" and on and on. The latest media
charge I have seen was that Wen Ho Lee participated in a 1992 meeting to
resolve a "design flaw" in the LANL version of the "neutron bomb." (It
doesn't seem to bother them when they learn that the "neutron bomb" they
continue to report that LLNL scientist Lee gave the PRC back in the late 70s
still had an important design flaw in 1992).

The next-to-latest and most popular media claim is that Wen Ho Lee
downloaded all the LANL "Legacy Files" -- which as best I can tell from
their reports, are all the predictions of the performance of the device,
together with the actual measured performance, as well as attempts to
reconcile the two if they differ substantially, of every full-scale test
ever conducted of LANL designed nuclear weapons -- and is suspected of
having given all of that to the PRC. If that is what the "Legacy Files" are,
then that charge -- unlike all the others -- is very troubling to me.

Attempts by weapon designers to reconcile predicted performance with
measured performance could result in both modifications to the codes used to
design weapons as well as modifications to the actual weapon design itself.
Now that we have foolishly signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty -- which
the Senate and the Duma have not ratified and probably won't ratify -- the
"Legacy Files" will be essentially the only Reality Check LANL has. LANL
will no longer be able to compare predicted performance with measured
performance on full-scale tests because there won't be any such tests. But
the PRC has also signed the CTBT and, if they were rendered intelligible,
the LANL "Legacy Files" would be almost as useful to the PRC as to LANL. So
it is conceivable -- barely conceivable -- that is what Wen Ho Lee was
doing, making intelligible for the PRC weapons designers the LANL "Legacy
Files."

Treason?

Why would a loyal American -- which is what Wen Ho Lee claims he is -- who
is supposed to be faithfully laboring in the vineyards of the U.S.
"Stockpile Stewardship Program -- do such a thing? Why would he give such
"secrets" to the PRC? I don't pretend to understand the mentality of
"Overseas Chinese," but it is becoming increasingly clear that the Chinese
in Beijing, do. They have (apparently) purchased or caused to be established
an environment at the U.S. Weapons Labs and elsewhere wherein Chinese
Americans are made to feel that the Clinton Administration wants them to
help their PRC brethren. Congress has become very alarmed about the
establishment of this environment by the Clinton Administration and issued a
prohibition against its continuance at the DOE Labs in the FY 97 and again
in the FY 98 and again in the FY 99 National Defense Authorization Acts
(NDAA). The prohibition in FY 97 -- written in the spring of 1996, about a
year after Wen Ho Lee had been cut off by LANL from downloading any more
Legacy Files -- reads as follows;

SEC. 3137. PROHIBITION ON FUNDING NUCLEAR WEAPONS ACTIVITIES WITH PEOPLE'S
REPUBLIC OF CHINA.

FUNDING PROHIBITION- No funds authorized to be appropriated or otherwise
available to the Department of Energy for fiscal year 1997 may be obligated
or expended for any activity associated with the conduct of cooperative
programs relating to nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons technology,
including stockpile stewardship, safety, and use control, with the Peoples
Republic of China.

In summary,

All the media reports of Overseas Chinese Spies giving the PRC the "secret"
to the "neutron bomb" were so far off the mark that it is no wonder that
people like me have had so much trouble figuring out what actually did
happen. As I told you in the beginning, I doubted very much that anyone had
given away the "secret" of the LLNL "neutron bomb", because as far as I
knew, no one had ever been able to get it to work, even in the Lab. We will
probably now get similar "clarification" by Gerth (who is still very, very
confused about a: the "neutron bomb" vis a vis laser-fusion vis a vis
"enhanced radiation devices," and b: LIDAR vis a vis radar) in the near
future of the W-88 brouhaha.

In the meantime, the Blame-Game Spinners in the Clinton Administration have
turned with a vengeance on the U.S. Labs which they had encouraged in
earlier years to "replicate," with the PRC, the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici
U.S.-Russian cooperative nuclear weapons proliferation prevention programs.
So when the Clinton Administration PRC programs were first prohibited by
Congress in 1996, and then went in the toilet last fall, they effectively
took the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici U.S.-Russian programs with them. At first blush
it looks like the Blame-Game Spinners will get away with ignoring or
delaying action on many of the charges made in the media, since most of
those charges will probably turn out to be severe misconceptions of what
really happened. It is only a surmise, but if there is anything I would be
suspicious of, it is that the PRC may be seeking MIRV technology. Even if it
turns out that LANL's Wen Ho Lee did have a legitimate reason for
downloading all those Legacy Files (ceasing in 1995 when the LANL physically
fire-walled LAN was upgraded so as to effectively prevent him from
downloading any more) and doing whatever computer analysis of them he has
been doing, then the implication would seem to be that the PRC didn't test
their version of the W-88 in 1995, doesn't have the "W-88 secret" as yet,
but could still be desirous of having a nuclear warhead that will fit into a
MIRV.