Tag: Intercontinental ballistic missile

• The Select Committee judges that the PRC’s next generation of thermonuclear weapons, currently under development, will exploit elements of stolen U.S. design information.

• PRC penetration of our national weapons laboratories spans at least the past several decades and almost certainly continues today.

A. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has stolen design information on the United States’ most advanced thermonuclear weapons.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has stolen classified design information on the United States’ most advanced thermonuclear weapons. These thefts of nuclear secrets from our national weapons laboratories enabled the PRC to design, develop, and successfully test modern strategic nuclear weapons sooner than would otherwise have been possible. The stolen U.S. nuclear secrets give the PRC design information on thermonuclear weapons on a par with our own.

The PRC thefts from our National Laboratories began at least as early as the late 1970s, and significant secrets are known to have been stolen as recently as the mid-1990s. Such thefts almost certainly continue to the present.

• The stolen information includes classified information on seven U.S. thermonuclear warheads, including every currently deployed thermonuclear warhead in the U.S. ballistic missile arsenal.

• The stolen information also includes classified design information for an enhanced radiation weapon (commonly known as the “neutron bomb”), which neither the United States, nor any other nation, has yet deployed.

• The PRC has obtained classified information on the following U.S. thermonuclear warheads, as well as a number of associated reentry vehicles (the hardened shell that protects the thermonuclear warhead during reentry).

U.S. Warhead U.S. Nuclear Missile Currently Deployed
W-88 Trident D-5 SLBM Yes

W-87 Peacekeeper ICBM Yes

W-78 Minuteman III (Mark 12A) ICBM Yes

W-76 Trident C-4 SLBM Yes

W-70 Lance SRBM No

W-62 Minuteman III ICBM Yes

W-56 Minuteman II ICBM No

In addition, in the mid-1990s the PRC stole, possibly from a U.S. national weapons laboratory, classified thermonuclear weapons information that cannot be identified in this unclassified Report. Because this recent espionage case is currently under investigation and involves sensitive intelligence sources and methods, the Clinton administration has determined that further information cannot be made public without affecting national security or ongoing criminal investigations.

The W-88, a miniaturized, tapered warhead, is the most sophisticated nuclear weapon the United States has ever built. In the U.S. arsenal, it is mated to the D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missile carried aboard the Trident nuclear submarine. The United States learned about the theft of the W-88 Trident D-5 warhead information, as well as about the theft of information regarding several other nuclear weapons, in 1995.

The PRC has stolen U.S. design information and other classified information for neutron bomb warheads. The PRC stole classified U.S. information about the neutron bomb from a U.S. national weapons laboratory. The U.S. learned of the theft of this classified information on the neutron bomb in 1996.

In the late 1970s, the PRC stole design information on the U.S. W-70 warhead from the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. The U.S. government first learned of this theft several months after it took place. The W-70 warhead contains elements that may be used either as a strategic thermonuclear weapon, or as an enhanced radiation weapon (“neutron bomb”). The PRC tested the neutron bomb in 1988….

PRC Missile and Space Forces

Since its beginning, the PRC’s ballistic missile and space program has received considerable foreign expertise and technology. This support has helped the PRC become a major ballistic missile and space power. The PRC has received considerable assistance from Russia (and previously from the Soviet Union) and the United States, as well as from other nations such as France and Germany.

From 1956 to 1960, the Soviet Union was the major supplier of ballistic missile technology and knowledge to the PRC. The Sino-Soviet split in 1960 ended this cooperation. Today, however, Russia is a major supplier of space launch technology to the PRC. This assistance could be expanded to help the PRC in its efforts to develop road-mobile ICBMs, which would provide the PLA with more confidence in the survivability of its retaliatory nuclear force.

Technology and knowledge acquired from the United States has also assisted the PRC’s missile and space programs, although this assistance was never officially sanctioned. Qian Xuesen was a Chinese citizen who was trained in the United States and who worked on classified programs including the Titan ICBM program. After being accused of spying for the PRC in the 1950s, Qian was permitted to return to the PRC, where he became the “father” of the PRC’s ballistic missile and space programs. The illegal acquisition of U.S. technology for the PLA’s ballistic missiles and space programs has continued aggressively during the past two decades, up to the present day.

The PRC has stolen design information on the United States’ most advanced thermonuclear weapons, elements of which could be emulated by the PRC in its next generation ICBMs.

The PRC has stolen U.S. missile guidance technology that has direct applicability to the PLA’s ballistic missiles.

Assistance from U.S. companies has improved the reliability of the PRC’s military and civilian rockets, and the transfer of some of these improvements to its ballistic missiles is possible.

Western nations, including the United States, Germany, and France, have provided significant support to the PRC’s satellite programs. German companies provide the communications package for the PRC’s DFH-3 communications satellites. U.S.-manufactured radiation-hardened chips are also used on the PRC’s meteorological satellites, used for both military and civilian purposes, to increase the on-orbit life of the satellites.

The PRC is a major ballistic missile proliferator. While the PRC agreed in 1991 to abide by the Missile Technology Control Regime, the PRC transferred complete ballistic missile systems to Pakistan in 1992, and has provided other nations with ballistic missiles production-related technologies. The PRC has not agreed to the MTCR’s revised limits on transfers of ballistic missile components.

The PRC has transferred ballistic missile technology to Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and other countries.

PRC Missile and Space Forces

Introduction

“By the next century, as high-tech space technology develops, the deployment of space-based weapons systems will be bound to make Ômastery of space’ and Ômastery of outer space’ prerequisites for naval victory.”

PLA Navy Senior Colonel

Shen Zhongchang

In 1956, advisors from the Soviet Union convinced the leadership of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to include ballistic missile development in the PRC’s Twelve Year Plan for the Development of Science and Technology (1956-1967). Having just fought a war against the United States in Korea and having come face-to-face with U.S. military supremacy, the PRC decided that combining long-range ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons offered its best chance to build weapons capable of neutralizing the United States’ and the Soviet Union’s formidable advantage.

Since that time, the PRC has embarked on an extensive ballistic missile and space program.

From its beginning in the 1950s, the PRC has also adapted its ballistic missile program into a major international space program. Since its first space launch in 1971, the PRC has developed ten variations of rockets that have allowed it to place 44 satellites into orbit.

Today, the PRC is embarked on a modernization plan for its ballistic missile and space forces. This expansion includes the exploitation of space-based military reconnaissance and communications satellites and space-based weapons.1 In addition, the PRC has set for itself the goal of putting men in space this year.

This chapter provides an analysis of the PRC’s missile and space forces, and the impact that Western technology has had on those forces. It details the PRC’s ballistic missile forces; its space forces, including its rockets and satellites; and the interaction between the two groups.

This chapter also serves as an introduction to the capabilities of the PRC’s missile and space programs, and the degree to which foreign assistance and technology may affect the course of their future development.

This chapter is derived from an extensive chapter in the Select Committee’s classified Report, much of which, due to national security concerns, cannot be reproduced here.

The PLA’s Ballistic Missile Forces

Development of the PLA’s Ballistic Missile Forces

The early development of the PLA’s indigenous ballistic missile programs was marked by Soviet assistance, and by the guidance of a Chinese citizen who had returned to the PRC after working on the U.S. Titan intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program.2

The Soviet Union’s Contribution to the PLA’s Ballistic Missile Force

The PRC received its first ballistic missiles in 1956, with the acquisition of two Soviet R-1 missiles. These were copies of the German cryogenic liquid-propellant V-2 missiles used in World War II. The PRC quickly acquired more advanced missiles in the form of the R-2 in 1957. The R-2 had considerable technical improvements over the R-1, including a greater range and a larger payload, as well as the use of storable liquid propellants.

In addition to the ballistic missiles themselves, the Soviet Union provided the PRC with blueprints for the R-2 missiles, and with advisors to assist in the PRC’s development of a copy of the R-2. With this Soviet technical assistance, the PRC was able to produce and deploy these missiles.

During this period, PRC engineers and students received training at the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI). While at MAI, these students were trained in aeronautical engineering, and acquired experience with more advanced Soviet missiles such as the SS-3 and the SS-4. In many instances, the information gained about more advanced Soviet missiles came when the students made copies of restricted notes, and quizzed their professors about the Soviet missiles.

In 1960, the Sino-Soviet split ended all cooperation, including missile cooperation, between the PRC and the Soviet Union. This left the PRC to continue its missile programs on its own, using the know-how it had gained from the Soviet Union, and the expertise of its American-trained scientists.

The Role of Qian Xuesen in the Development Of the PRC’s Ballistic Missile and Space Programs

The PRC’s ballistic missile and space programs received substantial assistance during their early development from Qian Xuesen (also known as Tsien Hsue-Shen), a Chinese citizen who was trained in the United States and had worked on classified U.S. missile programs, including the Titan intercontinental ballistic missile program.