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Copyright © 1994-98, by the Middle East Data Project, Inc. All rights reserved.
Communist China is continuing to provide key missile and nuclear technologies to Iran, despite explicit promises to curtail such cooperation, senior U.S. officials tracking the trade told The Iran Brief publisher Kenneth R. Timmerman.
Transfers of missile guidance components and telemetry equipment to Iran were "ongoing," the officials said.
China's cooperation with Iranian missile and nuclear projects has been more selective than its cooperation with Pakistan, the officials said. "They are aiding in areas like missile guidance, solid propellants, and telemetry. The Chinese have been less open on particular systems, and more willing to assist with broader technologies," for fear of getting caught by the U.S. and hit with U.S. sanctions.
The officials confirmed reports, first surfaced in the Washington Times last month, that China has agreed to supply Iran with telemetry equipment to monitor missile test flights. A top secret intelligence report, dated May 27, reported that Iranian officials from the Defense Industries Organization's Missile Industries Group (also known as Department 140, or the Sanam Industries Group) traveled to China earlier in May to finalize a contract with China Great Wall Industries Corp. to purchase an entire "telemetry infrastructure" for test flights of Iran's Shahab-3 and Shahab-4 series of missiles, scheduled to begin next year. China Great Wall is the manufacturer of the Long March space launch vehicles, as well as China's ballistic missiles, and has twice been banned from doing business with the U.S. government because of ballistic missile sales to Pakistan.
And Iran's DIO continues to purchase accelerometers, gyroscopes, and test equipment from the China Precision Engineering Import Export Company for the Shahab-3 missile, the officials said.
Transfers of solid rocket fuel, propellants, test equipment, and mixers were also continuing, the officials said, despite repeated U.S. protests. Iran is developing a series of solid-fuel ICBMs with Russian and Chinese help, far more advanced than the Shahab series, U.S. and Israeli intelligence sources say. If successful, these missiles will be able to reach targets in the continental United States.
Gordon Oehler, the former director of the CIA's Nonproliferation Center, told The Iran Brief that Iran was using a short-range missile system, the NP-110, as a cover for many of these purchases.
"The NP-110 project is for a 170 kilometer ballistic missile, which is not prohibited under the MTCR," Oehler said. "So this provides a lot of cover, and the Chinese are using that to ship production equipment to make solid fuel boosters." Iran is also seeking to purchase special X-ray equipment used to inspect solid rocket boosters under cover of the NP-110 project.
So far, the U.S. has not imposed sanctions on Chinese entities for the transfer of missile production equipment to Iran, despite a flurry of intelligence reports over more than a decade. The transfer of guidance equipment is prohibited under the Missile Technology Control Regime, and is considered a Category 2 violation.
In response to Category 2 sanctions imposed by the U.S. in 1993 for the sale of guidance components to Pakistan, China promised to abide by the MTCR guidelines in the future. According to former and current U.S. intelligence officials, China has consistently broken this promise. "Every statement on proliferation the Chinese have made has been false, and every agreement has been violated," said Gordon Oehler.
Responding almost immediately after the White House announced that President Clinton had vetoed the Iran Missile Proliferation Sanctions Act, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D,CA) pointedly warned the President that Congress would override his veto and that China could be sanctioned under the act. "Despite what this Administration calls progress in halting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the proliferation continues," Pelosi said.
Nuclear cooperation: A team of Iranian nuclear experts visited China in June, ostensibly "to discuss nuclear cooperation for peaceful purposes with China," the English-language Tehran Times reported.
If confirmed, this would directly contradict assurances given by China to the U.S. during the October 1997 Washington, DC summit that China would enter "no new nuclear contracts" with Iran.
Chinese president Jiang Zemin signed a written pledge in Washington to curtail any new nuclear contracts with Iran, and to cease all but two projects then underway: the construction of a uranium conversion plant, and the completion of a plant to manufacture zirconium cladding for nuclear fuel rods (Cf. "China backs off from Iran - maybe," TIB 11/10/97.).
Subsequent to that report, a top National Security Council official, speaking to The Iran Brief, said China had specifically pledged not to complete the uranium conversion plant. The Chinese pledge of no nuclear cooperation "includes suspended projects such as the nuclear power plants, and the nuclear fuel plant," the official said. "To resume these projects would be a clear violation of their commitment to us." ("Chinese pledges fail to convince," TIB 2/2/98). The official had a different list of two projects "grandfathered" by the agreement "the zero power reactor, which is nearly finished, and the Zirconium 2 facility, which will take one or two years to complete. Clearly, they are not allowed to supply anything else to Iran," he said. "These two projects are the only ones allowed under the agreement."
But last month, U.S. intelligence officials contradicted these earlier reports. While acknowledging that the Chinese government was "cutting back cooperation that had been going on," the officials said there were indications that the Iranians "are seeking entities in China they can develop a relationship with" for the supply of nuclear technologies.