posted 07-16-2002 05:38 PM               

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Tuesday, July 16, 2002

The United States believes China is selling weapons of mass destruction to Middle Eastern states to finance the modernization of it military.

U.S. officials said this includes WMD sales to such countries as Egypt, Iran, Libya, Syria and Saudi Arabia, Middle East Newsline reported. They said the sales include both technology for the development of biological and chemical weapons as well as components and expertise to develop nuclear weapons from civilian nuclear facilities.

The latest assertion of China's WMD policy came in a Defense Department report released on Friday. The Pentagon released a report to Congress entitled "Military Power of the People's Republic of China."

U.S. officials said China's need for funds to modernize its military could have been a factor in its violations of a pledge in 2000 to end WMD exports to such countries as Iran.

China is also said to have sold technology for medium-range missiles to such countries as Egypt, Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Syria. The officials said much of the technology is sold indirectly through such countries as North Korea and Pakistan.

On Monday, the U.S.-China Security Review Commission, established by Congress, agreed with the Pentagon report. The commission, in its first annual report to Congress, said Beijing provides technology and components for weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems to terrorist sponsoring states. The commission said this presents an increasing threat to U.S. security interests in the Middle East.

"China's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction — associated technology and conventional munitions may help subsidize certain force modernization programs," the report said. "Tracking these sources complicates the process of identifying and assessing defense budgetary trends."

"There are important areas in which Chinese policy runs directly counter to U.S. national security interests," the commission said in a report, "such as not controlling exports that contribute to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, its close relations with terrorist-sponsoring states like Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan and North Korea, its expanding long-range missile forces, its threatening policies toward Taiwan, and its pursuit of both asymmetric warfare capabilities and modern military technology that could menace American military forces."

In March, China announced a 17.6 percent increase, or $3 billion, in defense spending, which amounted to a total of $65 billion. Over the last decade, the Pentagon report said, China bought an average of $1 billion of weapons from Russia alone. Since 1999, the figure has risen to $2 billion a year. The report said Beijing has purchased weapons from other republics of the former Soviet Union as well as European states.

The Pentagon report said China's People's Liberation Army has focused on obtaining command and control systems for its air, sea and ground operations aimed at Taiwan. This has included the procurement of unmanned aerial vehicles and airborne early warning aircraft.