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President William J. Clinton
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
We have heard disturbuing rumors conceming your reported plans to certify the 1985 Nuclear Cooperation Agreement between the U.S, and the People's Republic of China this fall. We are writing to strongly urge you not to do so.
According to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, the United States must have a bilateral agreement for nuclear cooperation with any country it seeks to provide with the technologies, materials and services required to build nuclear power plants or other nuclear facilities. In 1985, such an agreement was negotiated with China. Before it is implemented, allowing the U.S. nuclear industry to sell nuclear power plants or fissile materials to China, the President must certify to Congress that China has become a reliable and responsible party to the international non-proliferation regime by halting all exports of nuclear technology to nations with unsafeguarded nuclear facilities in order to ensure that non-weapons states are not able to acquire nuclear weapons. No President has thus far been able to certify that this is the case, and we do not believe that it is possible to certify that it is the case today.
In February, 1996, it was reported that China had sold 5,000 ring magnets to Pakistan for use in Pakistan's uranium enrichment facility. Pakistan is not a signatory to the Non- Proliferation Treaty and does not allow the Internanonal Atomic Energy Agency, the agency charged with ensuring the peaceful application of nuclear technologies, to conduct inspections of all of its nuclear facilities. Pakistan and China denied that the sale had taken place. The Adrninistration decided not to impose sanctions on China and Pakistan for the sale in return for China's assurance that in the future it would only provide nuclear technologies to safeguarded nuclear facilities.
In the 198Os, China secretly constructed a nuclear reactor in Algeria. Press reports suggest that the reactor could have been intended for the production of nuclear weapons materials, indicating that the reactor is larger than required for nuclear research, that there are no electrical power generation facilities for civilian power distribution, that a surface-to-air missile battery is nearby, and that the facility is located at a remote site. After years of denial, China admitted to having assisted in constructing the reactor once aerial photographs identified it in 1991. Incidents such as these call into question the reliability of China's 'assurances'.
We do not believe that there exists substantial evidence that China has adopted export controls that are effective at halting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and we are concerned that certifying the 1985 Nuclear Cooperation Agreement could accelerate the acquisition of nuclear weapons by non-weapons states such as Pakistan or Iran.
Sincerely,
Edward J. Markey
Member of Congress
Gerald B. Solomon
Member of Congress
Nancy Pelosi
Member of Congress
Dana Rohrabacher
Member of Congress
Richard A. Gephardt
Member of Congress
Christopher Cox
Member of Congress
Frank Pallone, Jr.
Member of Congress
Joe Scarborough
Member of Congress
Randy "Duke" Cunningham
Member of Congress
Jim Bunning
Member of Congress
James P. McGovern
Member of Congress
John F. Tierney
Member of Congress
David E. Bonoir
Member of Congress
Maurice D. Hinchey
Member of Congress
Robert A. Underwood
Member of Congress
Ellen O. Tauscher
Member of Congress
Nita M. Lowey
Member of Congress
John W. Olver
Member of Congress
Lucille Roybal-Allard
Member of Congress
Tillie K. Fowler
Member of Congress
Cynthia A. McKinney
Member of Congress
Peter A. DeFazio
Member of Congress
Chet Edwards
Member of Congress
Tom A. Coburn
Member of Congress
James T. Walsh
Member of Congress
Lane Evans
Member of Congress
Howard L. Berman
Member of Congress
William O. Lipinski
Member of Congress
James A. Traficant, Jr.
Member of Congress
Neil Abercrombie
Member of Congress
Frank Mascara
Member of Congress
Patrick J. Kennedy
Member of Congress
Carolyn B. Maloney
Member of Congress
John Hostettler
Member of Congress
William D. Delahunt
Member of Congress
Jim Ryan
Member of Congress
Bill Pascrell Jr.
Member of Congress
Todd Tiahrt
Member of Congress
Donald M. Payne
Member of Congress
Jim Saxton
Member of Congress
Peter Hoekstra
Member of Congress
Ted Strickland
Member of Congress
Karen Thurman
Member of Congress
Bob Schaffer
Member of Congress
J.C. Watts Jr.
Member of Congress
Mark Foley
Member of Congress
Diana DeGette
Member of Congress
Peter T. King
Member of Congress
Walter B. Jones
Member of Congress
Sam Johnson
Member of Congress
Sherrod Brown
Member of Congress
Sue Myrick
Member of Congress
Eleanor Holmes Norton
Member of Congress
Michael Pappas
Member of Congress
Thomas M. Barrett
Member of Congress
John E. Peterson
Member of Congress
James E. Clyburn
Member of Congress
Jim Turner
Member of Congress
Frank R. Wolf
Member of Congress
Marcy Kaptur
Member of Congress
James A. Leach
Member of Congress
Sherwood L. Boehlert
Member of Congress
62 signatories total.
This
material is produced independently for NTI by the James Martin
Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of
International Studies and does not necessarily reflect the
opinions of and has not been independently verified by NTI or
its directors, officers, employees, agents. Copyright © 2007 by
MIIS.
