CIA activities in China

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[edit] China 1962

As of the time of the study, the IC believed China had no current capabilities with missiles, had mined and concentrated a substantial quantity of uranium, although there was no hard evidence that weapons-grade uranium or plutonium was being made. The NIE predicted the Chinese could explode a plutonium bomb by 1963, with an accelerated program, otherwise several years later. The assumption was that uranium enrichment would be to the level needed for plutonium breeding, not HEU. Tension between the PRC and USSR was such that it was not estimated the PRC would get Soviet help on nuclear weapons development.[1]

A facility at Lachou was judged incomplete, and it was unclear if it was a gaseous diffusion plant for producing weapons-grade uranium. If so, it could not be ready before 1966. It was estimated that a plutonium-producing reactor could be ready by 1962. [1] The editors at the National Security Archive made reasonable inferences, in spite of excisions from the document, that the CIA had made considerable progress that the Agency had made in using sophisticated collection methods--satellite photography and U-2 flights by Chinese Nationalist pilots… CIA did not know that the installation at Lanzhou was in fact a gaseous diffusion plant that would soon be ready for operations. [2]

[edit] China 1964

The first Chinese nuclear test was in 1964.

[edit] China 1996

[edit] Intelligence analysis

According to Bill Gertz of the Washington Times, a CIA intelligence memorandum dated 14 September 1996, entitled "China and Pakistan Discuss US Demarche on Nuclear Assistance", prepared by ---- said,

1. Chinese officials -- probably from the China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation (CNEIC) -- recently met with Ghulam Kibna, Pakistan's nuclear and missile procurement officer in Beijing, to discuss the 30 August US demarche on China's sale of diagnostic equipment and a furnace to unsafeguarded nuclear facilities in Pakistan, according to an intercepted message. Kibna said Chinese personnel were already in Pakistan to install the equipment, which an intercept in August indicated was to be delivered on 2 September.

  • A Chinese nuclear official informally told our Embassy on Wednesday that the equipment was sent late last year or early this year, but he claimed not to know the final end user at the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission.
  • The Pakistanis' expectation of the 2 September delivery, however, indicates either that the Chinese shipment scheduled in January did not occur or that it may have been only a partial shipment.
2. In the aftermath of CNEIC's ring magnet sale to Pakistan and China's 11 May commitment not to provide assistance to unsafeguarded nuclear facilities, senior-level govennment approval probably was needed for this most recent assistance. The Chinese told Kibna they needed end user certificates for the sale and all future dual-use shipments and other equipment for Pakistan's unsafeguarded facilities and vowed to discuss the certificates only with a "third party" -- apparently the US -- probably to demonstrate that Beijing is complying with its May commitment.
3. The PAEC's chainnan told Kibna any decision to share documents with others would require the approval of Pakistan's President or Prime Minister. Kibna suggested possible language for the false end user certificates to make it appear that one item -- possibly the diagnostic equipment -- was intended for the safeguarded Chasma nuclear power plasm which Chinese firms are building.
  • The intercept indicates Kibna also suggested to the Chinese that all remaining contracts, apparently for unsafeguarded facilities, be canceled and new ones drawn up naming unobjectionable end users.
  • Kibna claimed the Chinese reacted positively to the idea, but added this kind of agreement is "dangerous." Such a subterfuge probably would require the approval of senior Chinese Govemment leaders [3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Central Intelligence Agency (25 April 1962), National Intelligence Estimate 13-2-62, "Chinese Communist Advanced Weapons Capabilities,", <http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB38/document3.pdf> 
  2. ^ The United States and the Chinese Nuclear Program, 1960-1964 (January 12, 2001).
  3. ^ Gertz, Bill (1999). Betrayal. Regnery. ISBN 0-89526-317-3. 
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