SELLING CHINA THE ROPE . . .
SOKOLSKI, HENRY
SELLING CHINA THE ROPE . . . Clinton Didn't Start It, But He Sure Made It Worse By Henry Sokolski Presidential spokesman Mike McCurry last week justified the Clinton administration policy that...
...solid-rocket propulsion know-how...
...Did this prevent militarily useful information from being conveyed to the Chinese...
...Among them are these: Have we already given the Chinese everything of value (in which case, continued satellite commerce could hardly do much harm...
...It was under Commerce "controls" that Motorola and Lockheed worked with the Chinese to launch a series of small communications satellites known as Iridium...
...By 1995, the satellites being launched by the Chinese were more sophisticated...
...It was Ronald Reagan, after all, who first allowed the launch of U.S.-made satellites on Chinese rockets, after the Challenger space shuttle crash in 1986 deprived the satellite industry of launch alternatives...
...contractors are unwilling to speak freely...
...Were they briefed by the contractor...
...This is not really a defense of the policy, of course, but is it true...
...Martin Marietta and its Hong Kong customers were concerned that the Chinese kick motor might not be capable of such precision...
...Republican officials, as we shall see, were not without sin...
...But the transfer to Commerce was no simple "change...
...Finally, is the spread of missile technology so tied up in the transfer of satellites that we delude ourselves in trying to control their transfer...
...Two of these satellites at a time were successfully launched on a Long March rocket with a multiple-satellite dispenser of Chinese design...
...This kick motor's propellant had to be configured with extreme precision to ensure that it would propel the satellite to an exact point in space and no further and that it would do so without shattering the satellite through vibration or jolts of acceleration...
...Boosting a satellite up into a precise position in space with a kick motor is little different from blasting warheads off their predictable course down through space and the atmosphere...
...To encourage them to be forthcoming, Congress and the executive branch should grant contractors immunity from prosecution...
...satellites to China...
...role in China's missile program can we know whether the Clinton administration has met this most basic obligation...
...Using coupling load analysis, the Chinese could "soften" their launchers, allowing them to carry more sensitive payloads—be it satellites or the latest in highly accurate, multiple-warhead systems...
...Now, however, their concerns were handled differently: Where before senior State and Defense officials took action, now little or nothing happened...
...Or is there more that they need or want that we should control and protect...
...SELLING CHINA THE ROPE . . . Clinton Didn't Start It, But He Sure Made It Worse By Henry Sokolski Presidential spokesman Mike McCurry last week justified the Clinton administration policy that allowed the transfer of satellite technology to the Chinese military with the hoary “they started it” defense...
...Loral-made satellite blew up shortly after liftoff...
...Republican officials, then, had a spotty record, with the advantage that they worried about it and tried to enforce the law...
...Defense Department later determined could help China perfect more reliable, accurate, long-range ballistic missiles...
...Why might it matter...
...But because all exchanges were monitored, there was a clear record of what was conveyed and a concerted effort to keep such transfers to a minimum...
...rocket know-how...
...Eager to connect the dots of the scandal, the House last week voted 364 to 54 to suspend all transfers of U.S...
...The crude Chinese rockets were originally designed to be so rigid that vibration from the rocket's separating stages and engines risked shattering delicate satellites of the sort the U.S...
...This paper trail and government monitoring work didn't grind to a halt until 1996...
...Their first step came in late 1993 when they asked the Commerce Department to persuade the White House to drop government monitoring of contractors' discussions with the Chinese...
...Word got out: Increasingly, industry officials disobeyed government guidance, shared their know-how with the Chinese, and discovered that contempt for the law paid off...
...According to a CIA report leaked this spring, 13 Long March missiles with nuclear warheads are aimed at American cities...
...The space industry was so eager to share this technology, it lobbied Congress and the executive branch throughout 1993 to be given a free hand to do so...
...Finally, each launch of a Chinese Long March vehicle helped improve the reliability of China's intercontinental ballistic missile fleet, since the rockets are the same...
...Today's controversy surrounds what the Chinese have managed to learn through launching satellites made by two American companies, Loral Space and Communications and Hughes Electronics...
...There is, after all, a broader set of concerns at stake...
...addressed—from proper mounting and release of the satellites to coupling load analysis and attitude control...
...China's launching of U.S.-made satellites—worth up to a half-billion dollars in revenue to date—has helped finance China's own missile-modernization efforts and missile exports to nations like Pakistan and Iran...
...This story has exploded because of the tandem revelations that the Chinese military may have made illegal campaign donations to aid Clinton's reelection and that Loral's CEO is a top donor to the Democratic party...
...And all were resolved...
...And all of this history (not just the 1996 Loral-Hughes case) bears investigating...
...The industry, however, correctly sensed that with Clinton's election the time for pushing for decontrol was ripe...
...exportcontrol laws may have been broken...
...First, all of our satellite transfers have helped China perfect its military rocketry...
...The president is duty bound to provide for the common defense...
...companies would want to launch (and the Chinese would want to develop later on their own...
...contractors have a natural inclination to tutor the Chinese on what they should do to make their crude rockets precise and reliable (they don't want to lose their satellites, which are worth up to 10 times the value of the launcher...
...Indeed, allegations of influence peddling by the Chinese and the contractors should not divert attention from the crucial questions raised by a decade of U.S...
...It also has given the Chinese access to U.S...
...Their wish was granted...
...government rocket-engineer enforcement agent...
...Anticipating this, State and Defense officials drew up strict rules in the late 1980s covering precisely what information companies could share with the Chinese...
...What’s unknown is what, if anything, was then said to the Chinese engineers by the company’s foreign staff, who are not bound by U.S...
...In an attempt to clear up liability for two launch failures in 1992, U.S...
...You might say they not only skipped confession, but burned the church down...
...Clean-rooms were constructed in China to assure Hughes's sensitive communications satellites wouldn't be ruined by dust, humidity, or major temperature changes before they were launched...
...This administration,” said McCurry, “has pursued the exact same policy pursued by the Bush administration...
...This will hurt industry only to the extent that it drags its heels in providing information about past transfers...
...But you might say that they worried enough to go to confession: They tried to control against the leaking of sensitive technology in their dealings with China by at least monitoring and limiting the transactions...
...What, if anything, should be done to improve enforcement of controls and assure effective executive-branch backing...
...In an effort to clarify to insurers who was to blame for this accident, analysis done by Loral and Hughes was presented to the Chinese, which the U.S...
...Meanwhile, government monitors continued to file compliance reports on a host of issues...
...One could go into greater detail on the potential military significance of our satellite transfers to China...
...If this larger record is examined, three points emerge...
...Were there infractions...
...We don’t know...
...This will require going beyond the narrow legal question of whether Loral and Hughes broke the law in 1996...
...The federal grand jury is now trying to determine what, if any, U.S...
...The good news in this case is we may have a clue whether this technology was leaked: Industry's campaign to do away with monitoring didn't fully bear fruit until 1996...
...contractors also discussed how to improve Chinese payload farings (the nose cone at the rocket's top that shields the satellite) and attitude and engine controls, which fire the rocket's stages and keep them and the payload (either military or civilian) at the precise angles required for proper functioning...
...Focusing on the money is exciting, but probably misses the point when it comes to assessing the potential damage done to national security...
...These rules required monitoring of all contractor-Chinese exchanges (including discussions) by a U.S...
...By the end of the Bush administration, proposals were made to loosen controls over satellite transfers...
...Certainly, given the seriousness of these matters, it would be shortsighted of Congress to focus exclusively on the political and legal issues surrounding the 1996 Loral case...
...The responsibility was transferred to the Commerce Department, which (no surprise) trusts industry to monitor itself...
...Focusing on money is exciting, but probably misses the point when it comes to assessing the potential damage done to national security...
...Not so the Clinton administration, which from 1993 on not only showed contempt for enforcing existing satellite controls but loosened them so as to make it all but impossible to know whether they were being violated...
...Did they speak with the Chinese or otherwise convey U.S...
...Yes, but when they were reported, senior officials in the Defense and State departments reprimanded the contractors and got them to stop...
...Not until we know the truth about the U.S...
...And it was George Bush who waived Tiananmen Square sanctions to allow the Chinese launch of up to five U.S.-made satellites, three of which—all made by Hughes—were launched before he left office...
...They wanted to share, unimpeded by monitors, a key technology known as "coupling load analysis...
...Yet despite these enforcement measures, a number of key technologies were transferred before 1993...
...Whether they would have succeeded no one can know, because the 1992 elections intervened...
...In fact, not just Loral and Hughes, but Lockheed Martin, Motorola, and Martin Marietta have all worked closely with the Chinese launch industry—work which began not in 1996, but nearly a decade ago in 1989...
...In 1995, U.S...
...law still required government monitoring agents, and compliance reports were still being filed...
...Despite Justice Department warnings that he might undermine the grand-jury investigation of Loral, the president went ahead earlier this year and allowed the company to transfer an additional satellite to China...
...A host of What’s unknown is what, if anything, was said to the Chinese engineers...
...That's when President Clinton quietly removed virtually all commercial satellites and related technology from State Department munitions controls (which required official monitors...
...restrictions...
...Perfecting kick motors can also help in China’s development of a warhead-delivery system known among experts as a “post-boost vehicle”— which is designed to penetrate missile defenses...
...The commission and Congress, moreover, are unlikely to get anywhere if U.S...
...But this much is already abundantly clear: Our national security demands that Congress learn all the facts...
...Meantime, a moratorium should be placed on further transfers of satellites to China until the commission and Congress get the answers they need...
...Details of a federal grand-jury investigation have been leaked to New York Times reporter Jeff Gerth and others that make this much clear: In February 1996 a Chinese Long March rocket carrying a Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, was the top official for nonproliferation issues in the Bush Defense Department...
...solid-rocket propulsion know-how...
...To get at these questions, Congress will have to hold its own hearings—but it will need the time and depth and expertise that can only come with the creation of an independent commission...
...One of these, AsiaSat 2, a communications satellite made by Martin Marietta, was to be placed in its orbit with a Chinese solid-rocket kick motor—a final rocket stage strapped to the satellite itself...
...There is no way to judge the administration's performance in the Loral-Hughes matter without knowing what was attempted by prior administrations...
...Only they know what has actually been transferred to the Chinese since 1996...
...It was tantamount to a complete overthrow of the old export-control regime...
...China now has mastered a technology virtually interchangeable with that of multiple independently targetable warhead vehicles (MIRV), a delivery system used on America's most advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles...
...And clean-room technology, as it happens, is also crucial in preparing any advanced system for launch, including reconnaissance satellites and complex warhead packages...
...In his defense of the Clinton policy last week, Mike McCurry cited this transfer to Commerce as the one change that distinguished the Clinton administration's policy from Bush administration practices...
...The result...
...They asked State if they could witness a Chinese test-firing of the motor...
...Indeed, the MIRV system that our military uses today was borrowed from dispensers that the commercial-satellite industry first developed...
...Would it make more sense to accept this connection and expand such trade, or in the case of China, cut it off entirely...
...satellite commerce with China...
...Were they somehow able to learn about U.S...
Vol. 3 • June 1998 • No. 37
