May 21, 1998

House Votes to Ban Export of Satellites and Missile Technology to China

By ERIC SCHMITT

ASHINGTON -- In a bipartisan stampede on a politically explosive issue, the House overwhelmingly voted on Wednesday to bar the export of American-made commercial satellites to China.

The two lopsided votes on the issue -- 364 to 54 against satellite exports and 412 to 6 against exports of sensitive technology embedded in satellites -- reflect the widespread fear of Democrats and Republicans that President Clinton's decision to waive export controls on space technology to China allowed Beijing to hone the accuracy of nuclear missiles that could strike American cities.

"If there is an innocent explanation for all this, the American people haven't heard it," Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., said on the House floor on Wednesday.

Administration officials criticized the votes on amendments to a $271 billion Defense Department budget bill as a frenzied response to reports that the Chinese military might have funneled campaign money into Democratic committees in the 1996 presidential campaign. The officials said that if enacted, the measures would prohibit the U.S. satellite industry from using low-cost Chinese launching services.

"If this legislation passes, it will threaten American global leadership in communication and commercial satellite business," said James Rubin, the State Department spokesman.

Officials from major satellite companies, including Loral and the Lockheed Martin Corp., declined to comment on the House votes.

The amendments still need the approval of the Senate, where prospects for passage are unclear. "I don't know whether we'd see the Senate go along with exactly that kind of response," said Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., whose Governmental Affairs subcommittee will examine the missile technology issue at a hearing on Thursday.

As the House debated the amendments, Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, the majority leader, announced a multipronged Senate inquiry into the transfer of advanced technology to China. On Tuesday, Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia said the House would form a special select committee to investigate the same issues.

But Lott and Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the Intelligence Committee chairman who was named by Lott named to lead the Senate inquiry, implicitly criticized the House approach as taking too long to establish and being too susceptible to partisanship.

"Everybody here knows that the Senate has a bipartisan intelligence committee," Shelby said. "The House is partisan. I think we'll be a lot better off."

Lott said if Clinton follows through with his trip to China next month, it would be a "tragic mistake" for him to open his visit at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, where the Chinese Army crushed pro-democracy demonstrators in 1989.

Lawmakers on both sides of Capitol Hill renewed their calls for the administration to release documents related to the technology transfers that congressional committees have requested in recent weeks.

The White House counsel, Charles F.C. Ruff, on Wednesday promised that the administration would soon begin turning over to Congress documents about the Chinese launching of American satellites.

Earlier this month Lott and Gingrich complained to the president about they said was a "veil of secrecy" that the administration had erected around congressional efforts to look into the case of space expertise provided to China in 1996 by executives from Loral Space & Communication and the Hughes Electronics Corp., a subsidiary of General Motors.

What happened in 1996 is now the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. Ruff cautioned in a letter to Lott that the department would be consulted before any documents were turned over to Congress.

So far the department has blocked the Pentagon from releasing a classified report it did last year that found that the help the Chinese received in 1996 harmed the national security of the United States by advancing China's missile capabilities, according to administration officials. Hughes and Loral have denied any wrongdoing.

In the debate on the House floor Wednesday, Republicans were gleeful at finding a weighty issue to use against Clinton that was easily understood and that resonated with the American public.

"This is not a political issue, this is a national security issue," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.

Democrats who had staunchly defended the White House from Republican attacks on campaign finance practices and on the president's relationship with a White House intern on Wednesday fled for political cover by supporting the Republican amendments in droves.

"The politics of this is pretty overwhelming," conceded Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, one of a handful of Democrats who voted against both amendments. "No one wants to strengthen Chinese missile capability."

Hamilton said despite the amendments' popular appeal, each had particular problems.

American companies export commercial satellites to foreign countries because it is cheaper to launch them into orbit there than it is from the United States. China's rates for commercial launches -- $20 million to $25 million per launch -- are among the cheapest in the world, satellite specialists say.

Besides the measures barring the export of missile and satellite technology, including the launching of commercial satellites in China, the House also approved, by a vote of 414 to 7, an amendment prohibiting American participation in any investigations into failed launches of American satellites by Chinese rockets unless specially trained monitors from the Pentagon or State Department acted as chaperones.

The Justice Department is investigating whether sensitive technological information was passed to the Chinese during American industry reviews of an accidental explosion of a Chinese rocket moments after it was launched in February 1996.

The criminal inquiry is focused on whether officials from Loral and other companies who joined in the review violated American export control laws. Loral said this week that no secret or sensitive information was conveyed to the Chinese. But a Pentagon study concluded that American security was jeopardized.

Republicans remained unpersuaded by the satellite industry's denials of sharing information. "Loral and Hughes, to make their stockholders happy, had to figure out how to make the missiles more reliable," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.

The House also approved a nonbinding resolution urging Clinton not to enter into any new agreements with China on satellite or missile technology. "As he prepares for the summit, President Clinton should leave the bag of carrots at home," said Rep. Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y., who heads the House International Security Committee.

In addition, Republicans focused on whether the administration's decision in 1996 to move control over export licensing to the Commerce Department from the State Department helped China develop more reliable and accurate rockets.

The Pentagon and State Department objected to the policy shift. The technology needed to put a commercial satellite in orbit is similar to the technology that guides a long-range nuclear missile to its target.

Republicans evoked some cold war images, repeatedly referring to "Communist China" to underscore their concern that ordinary citizens had been endangered by a policy shift in Washington. "Something terrible has happened, and every man, woman and child may well have been jeopardized," Rohrabacher said.

For the most part, Democrats offered only a token defense.

"The tenor of these amendments is to make policy judgments before we have all the facts," said Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the ranking Democrat on the House National Security Committee.

Republicans tried to stick to the theme that the administration's actions may have jeopardized national security, and occasionally they pushed that theme to its limits.

"My colleagues on the other side need to be patriots first and politicians second," said Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., who earlier in the debate on Wednesday raised the question of whether Clinton's waiver was "treasonous." (Burton said he hoped not.)

Democrats pounced on Burton's remarks as evidence that partisan politics, in the guise of concern over the affairs of state, was motivating Republicans.

"We may have liberals, moderates and conservatives, but I'll tell you one thing, we have patriots on this side," snapped Rep. Norman Sisisky, D-Va. "Let's keep this debate on the high level."