March 13, 1998

MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS

FROM: GARY SCHMITT

SUBJECT: U.S.-China Policy

It's simple. China agreed at October's U.S.-China summit in Washington not to engage in nuclear weapons-related proliferation with Iran. State Department spokesman James Rubin said at the time: "China is not going to engage in any new nuclear cooperation with Iran of any kind." In exchange, the Clinton Administration agreed to certify China was in compliance with nuclear non-proliferation laws and commitments in order to clear the way for U.S. companies to sell nuclear equipment and reactors to China.

Now, as front-page stories in today's Washington Post and Washington Times make clear, China had no intention of abiding by the agreement.

We shouldn’t be surprised. China has been correctly described (in the words of the CIA) as "the most significant supplier of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)-related goods and technology to foreign countries." And China has a track record of signing accords and then ignoring them, doing what it wants regardless of prior diplomatic commitments.

The bottom line: the Clinton Administration cannot be trusted to handle the issue of Chinese proliferation in a serious manner. The consequences of this mishandling are too important to U.S. interests for the Congress to stand by idly. Indeed, as the newspaper accounts make clear, the administration was willing to certify China’s compliance despite intelligence telling it otherwise, and only formally objected to the sale after the matter came to the Congress’ attention. The clock is running. President Clinton issued the certification for China on January 12. Under current law, Congress has only 30 legislative days to pass a resolution overruling the president; this period ends on March 18. At a minimum, the Congress should enact legislation (HR 2358) crafted by House International Relations Committee Chair Benjamin Gilman, which extends the 30-day period to 120 legislative days. The House passed the measure overwhelmingly in November (394-29). It is now up to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate to act on this legislation -- and the Congress should move quickly to pass more fundamental legislation to address the inadequacies of our current policy toward China.