US-PRC Lab Relations pre-1992

The"redacted" Cox Report mentions (p.82)"US and PRC lab-to-lab exchanges were ended in the late 1980s, but were resumed in 1993." That statement is highly, and perhaps deliberately, misleading. It suggests that there were "Lab-to-Lab" programs with the PRC during the Reagan Administration and that the Clinton Administration merely revived them. In the first place, the term "Lab-to-Lab" was coined for, and should be applied uniquely to, the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici (NLD) programs wherein US Weapons Lab scientists were authorized and funded to assist their "opposite numbers" of the Russian MINATOM Institutes in preventing the proliferation of Soviet fissile materials, nuclear weapons technologies and technologies.

There were, in the decades prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, numerous cooperative research programs between scientists at various US government and academic Labs with their opposite numbers in the Soviet Union, as well as a few in the PRC, but every one of those programs were absolutely non-weapon related. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the very real possibility of 30,000 "loose nukes," a program like NLD Lab-Institute cooperative proliferation prevention programs would have been Unthinkable, by responsible officials in either the US or in the Soviet Union, Absolutely Unthinkable.

It ought to have been Unthinkable to the Clinton Administration to institute such a program in 1993 with the PRC. The necessary and sufficient conditions for NLD in Russia were the (a) chaotic political system, (b) collapsing economy, (c) as many as 100,000 unemployed nuclear weapons technologists, hundreds of tons of excess nuclear weapons materials, and about 30,000 fairly "loose nukes." None of these conditions prevailed in the PRC in 1993 and there could be almost no reason to Engage them in NLD like activities.

Congress clearly understood this all along. One or both of the "classified" assessments by the Experts and the Security officials of the PRC Secret 1995 document was apparently provided in 1996 to certain Congressional Committees-including Chairman Weldon's HNSC Subcommittee-and may have been the cause of a 1996 Congressional prohibition in the FY 1997 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which was repeated in the FY 1998 and FY 1999 NDAA:"No funds authorized to be appropriated or otherwise available to the Department of Energy for fiscal year 1997 may be obligated or expended for any activity associated with the conduct of cooperative programs relating to nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons technology, including stockpile stewardship, safety, and use control, with the People's Republic of China."  (Title XXXI, Section 3137(a). National Defense Authorization Act for FY 97)

The NLD Lab-Institute programs were specifically exempted from the above prohibition. But Congress apparently felt the need to find out what had been going on between the US weapons Labs and the PRC weapons labs, and to determine how much damage might already have been done by the Administration's PRC "Engagement" and "Openness" policles. Hence, section 3137 of the FY 97 NDAA:

(1) The Secrecary of Energy shall prepare, in consultation with the Scerecary of Defense,a report containing a description of all discussions and activities between the United States and the People's Republic of China regarding nuclcar weapons matters that have occurred before the dat of the enactment of this Act and that are planned to occue   after such dare For each such discussion or activity, the report shall include--

(A).the authority under which the discussion or acrivity took or will take place;
(B). the subject of the discussion of activlry:
(C).participants or likely participants;
(D).the source and amount of funds used or to be used to pay for the discussion or activity;
(E).a description of the actions taken or to be taken to ensure that no dlassified information or unclassified conrrolled information was or will be revealed, and a determination of whether classified information or unclassified controlled intormation was revealed in previous discussions.

(2).The report shall be submitted to the Committee on Armed Services of the Scoare and the Committee on National Security of the House of Representutives not later than January 15. 1997.

In making the required Report tyo the House Armed Setvices Commtittee and Senate Armed Services Committee, the Administration had had more than a year since receiving the Experes assessment of the PRC Secret document to evaluate their Openness and Engagement policies in light of that assessment. Tepresentatives for the Secretaries of Defense and Energy essentially denied to Congress that there were, or ever had been, any US-PRC 'cooperative'programs involving muclear weapons "stockpile stewardship safety and use control"for Congress to "prohibit." DOEdid admit that the US had proposed-as a part of the Clintonb Administration's Engagement initiative with the PRC -a "cooperative"program similar to the NLD Lab-Instituce Materials Protection, Control and Accountability [MPC&A] program, but that the PRC Labs replied that they were not interested in particlpating!