BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
The U.S. rulers have stepped up their spy claims against
Beijing in a campaign that deepens Washington's preparations
for military confrontation with the Chinese workers state,
while curtailing the democratic rights of working people in
the United States.
A Congressional committee chaired by Rep. Christopher Cox accused Beijing of using "nuclear espionage" to obtain "design information on the United States' most advanced thermonuclear weapons." The committee released its report May 25 following a deluge of articles in the capitalist media whipping up the spy scare. "China is installing a warhead said to based on U.S. secrets," exclaimed a headline in the May 14 New York Times.
"Performance data about various types of nuclear warheads...can easily be found on the Internet," countered Zhao Qizeng, spokesman for China's State Council. "They are no longer secrets, so there is nothing to steal." He said China needed no help from the United States to make its own bombs and missiles.
U.S. Energy Secretary William Richardson himself noted that the charge that information was stolen from a nuclear lab "is based on one piece of intelligence reporting, and the FBI has been unable to identify a logical suspect."
Without presenting any concrete evidence to substantiate the espionage charges, the Cox report claims a Chinese spy turned over several "secret" documents that detail how Beijing supposedly obtained technical information on U.S. nuclear warheads. The report, released on May 25, said the anonymous agent was "secretly under the direction" of China's intelligence services.
The allegations also include claims that the Chinese government has set up 3,000 "front" companies that are used for espionage, opening up hundreds of thousands of people of Chinese origin to be targeted on accusations of spying, regardless of evidence.
Among the cases that have been played up in the press is that of Ben Wu, a philosophy professor who was accused of smuggling outdated night-vision equipment to China and jailed in 1993. More recently, scientist Wen Ho Lee was fired from his job at the Los Alamos National Laboratory March 8, based on allegations he gave nuclear weapons secrets to China. Lee has not been charged with any crime, and government officials at Los Alamos and in Washington admit they have no evidence against him.
`A new-style NATO'
In an unambiguous threat to the Chinese workers state, the
Congressional report complains of Beijing's "territorial
claims against other Southeast Asian nations and Japan." These
goals "conflict with current U.S. interests in Asia and the
Pacific and the possibility of a U.S.-[China] confrontation
cannot be dismissed."
In 1996 Beijing conducted military exercises off the coast of Taiwan, reaffirming its right to reunite with the island. In response, the Clinton administration sent a U.S. navy warship passing through the Taiwan Strait. The regime in Taiwan was set up by the former Chinese ruling class that fled following the victorious revolution by workers and farmers there in 1949.
Tensions have escalated between Washington and Beijing, compounded by the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia and the Clinton administration's announced plans to deploy a "missile shield" in countries that surround China's southern flank, including Japan, south Korea, and Taiwan. Washington claims the missile system is needed to protect the 45,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan and the 37,000 in south Korea from "rogue states" such as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The imperialist encirclement of China has been tightened with the recent strengthening of the military alliance between Washington and Tokyo. The Japanese Parliament approved plans May 24 to provide more military support for U.S. soldiers in Asia and give Washington more access to its seaports and airports. The clamor over "human rights" violations in Tibet could serve as a pretext for Washington to launch a military assault on China, London's Financial Times reported May 26. The big-business class in Japan and the United States are preparing for the day when they will attempt to use military force to reimpose capitalist property relations as the dominant social system in China and north Korea.
More military pressure was exerted against China when a Chinese fishing boat sunk May 24 after colliding with a Philippine naval patrol vessel in a region claimed by Manila and Beijing. The incident occurred on the eve of a vote by the Philippine Senate on bolstering military ties with Washington. Philippine president Joseph Estrada has called for U.S. military support in his government's dispute with Beijing over the Spratly Islands.
The Chinese government responded to the recent imperialist aggression by banning U.S. warships from docking in Hong Kong, canceling military exchanges, and ending talks with Washington on "human rights." Beijing also issued a warning to Tokyo and Washington May 25 to keep out of any conflict involving Taiwan.