> Last updated: Mon, May 31 at Prague 06:08 pm, N.Y.
>12:08 pm
> China Says U.S. Nuclear "Secrets" On Internet
> BEIJING, May 31, 1999 -- (Reuters)
> China sneered on Monday at allegations it
> stole U.S. nuclear weapons secrets, saying
> warhead technology is readily available in
> libraries and on the Internet.
> "Performance data on the seven types of
> nuclear warheads...have long been openly
> published in the United States," cabinet
> spokesman Zhao Qizheng told reporters.
> "They are no longer secrets, so there is
> nothing to steal," Zhao said in a statement
> he read to reporters before logging on to
> the Internet to demonstrate the availablity
> of nuclear technology.
> At a website registered to the Federation of
> American Scientists (http://www.fas.org),
> he showed graphics and data on the
> dimensions and yields of nuclear bombs
> included in the Cox report.
> A report by a special congressional
> committee headed by Republican
> Christopher Cox said China stole secret
> information on U.S. nuclear technology,
> including seven types of warheads, in a
> spying campaign spanning 20 years.
> "This is utterly absurd. This sensational
> conclusion does not hold water," Zhao
> said.
> He insisted China has never stolen foreign
> technology to build its national defence and
> said U.S. assumptions that it could not
> have developed advanced nuclear weapons
> on its own were "wildly arrogant".
> "Never did China in the past, nor does it at
> present, nor will it in the future base its
> development of sophisticated national
> defence technology related to national
> security and interests on the theft of
> technology from other countries."
> Zhao branded as racist the Cox Report's
> charge that China used not only
> professional intelligence agents but also
> scientists, students, businessmen and
> bureaucrats to obtain secrets.
> "This is a great slander against the Chinese
> nation and is typical racial prejudice," he
> said.
> China launched its first indigenous
> surface-to-surface missile and first atom
> bomb in 1964, 12 years before the
> establishment of diplomatic relations with
> the United States when Washington was
> running an economic blockade of China,
> he said.
> Zhao's denials were the most detailed
> attempt to date by Beijing to rebut the
> allegations of last week's 872-page Cox
> Report.
> The report has compounded fractures in
> Sino-U.S. ties caused by NATO's bombing
> of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on
> May 7.
> Zhao said the report's release was timed by
>"anti-China forces" in Washington to sabotage relations and deflect
>attention from the embassy bombing.
> "It seems totally intentional that the Cox Report
>was published under current circumstances," he said.
> "Their purpose is to divert public attention, fan
>anti-China feelings, defame China's image and try to hold back Sino-U.S
>relations so as to stop China's development," he said.
> Chinese media have insisted the bombing was
>deliberate, while NATO said it was a mistake based on outdated maps.
>((c) 1999 Reuters)