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THE SINO-SAUDI CONNECTION

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N. KOREA, PAKISTAN, CHINA

Edward Timperlake/ William C. Triplett, II
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Beginning Dec. 9, the Communist Chinese general who
threatened to incinerate Los Angeles with nuclear weapons
will visit Washington D.C.

Gen. Xiong Guangkai, the People's Republic of China's deputy
chief of staff for intelligence, has been absent from the
Washington scene since the Clinton era. It will be
interesting to see if he can weasel a photo-op or two with
high-ranking administration officials. His visit appears to
be Beijing's price for a lower level of obstructionism at
the U.N. on the Iraq question and his mission is a restart
of the U.S.-P.R.C. military-to-military talks.

However, in addition to his verbal threats aimed at America,
evidence is now beginning to emerge pointing to the general
as more of a principal and less as an accessory in the
nuclear weapons for ballistic missile swap between Pakistan
and North Korea.

Looking at the origins and development of the North Korean
long-range missile program, we can say that without critical
help from Chinese Peoples' Liberation Army scientists, there
probably would not be such a program today. In 1994, the
Wall Street Journal published a discovery by the American
Defense Intelligence Agency that one stage of the new North
Korean missile was a copy of the Chinese CSS-2 missile.
Quoting the DIA, the Journal wrote, "Presumably, the only
way they [North Korean engineers] would know how to build
something the size of the CSS-2 is either by physical
transfer of such a beast, or of engineers familiar with the
program."

Around the same time, Pakistan's gas centrifuge nuclear
weapons program also had a "Made in China" look to it. The
gas centrifuge nuclear enrichment process requires ring
magnets for its operation and the P.R.C. is the world's
leader in samarium-cobalt ring magnets. The Washington Times
broke the story of Beijing's delivery of thousands of ring
magnets to Pakistan in 1996. These are the same type of ring
magnets Beijing sold to Saddam Hussein just before the Gulf
war.

Nuclear weapons can be created based on plutonium or
enriched uranium. North Korea had a plutonium-based nuclear
weapons program but the Agreed Framework with the U.S.
allegedly halted that in 1994. It also has abundant natural
uranium but no technology for a uranium enrichment bomb.
Pakistan has short-range missiles, the M-11s, it received
from China. However, the M-11s won't reach the critical
military facilities on India's east coast and the P.R.C.
doesn't want to be caught transferring longer-range missiles
to Pakistan.

Thanks to excellent reporting by The Washington Times and
the New York Times, we now know that American-built C-130
transport aircraft of the Pakistan Air Force have been
shuttling between Islamabad and Pyongyang trading nuclear
enrichment technology and equipment for long-range missiles.
The C-130s have to refuel at PLA Air Force bases in Western
China at least twice, once coming and once going. We do not
know if the C-130s have loaded additional cargo while they
are on the ground in China, but there is certainly an
opportunity for Beijing to add some ring magnets on the
Islamabad-to-Pyongyang leg and some critical missile gear on
the return to Pakistan.

Gen. Xiong is more than complicit in this weapons of mass
destruction trade. In 1950, the North Korean leadership
dragged the P.R.C. into a war with the United Nations. At
the end of it, a million Chinese soldiers had been killed or
wounded, including the son of Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung.
It is simply inconceivable that Beijing's political
leadership would not demand, and get, full intelligence on
North Korea from Gen. Xiong's military spies. If he had
failed in this assignment, he would have been fired. But in
fact, Gen. Xiong is the PLA face that Communist China is
presenting to the Americans.

We believe Gen. Xiong is either the PLA broker for the North
Korea-Pakistan swap or he sits on an as-yet-unidentified
committee that brokers this trade. The evidence points in
this direction. First, in early August 1998 Gen. Xiong was
in North Korea for a visit. After a "decent interval" of
about a month, North Korea electrified Japan by firing a
multistage missile over the home islands. This is the same
missile or versions of it that is the subject of the trade
with Pakistan.

In the spring of this year, Gen. Xiong showed up in
Islamabad to sign "Joint Military Production" and "Joint
Defense" Agreements with Pakistan. Analysts in Washington
and New Delhi immediately wondered, "joint military
production of what?" and "joint defense against whom?" After
another "decent interval," the C-130s started making their
regular Islamabad-Pyongyang runs.

There is a saying in the intelligence business that "there
are no coincidences." Gen. Xiong's appearance at both ends
of the Pakistan-North Korea weapons of mass destruction
pipeline is both significant and ominous. 

Given the distaste for the U.S.-P.R.C. military-to-military
meetings since the Clinton years, it is doubtful, absent
Iraq, that the Pentagon would be hosting Gen. Xiong and his
team next week. They were drafted on this one. In light of
the nuclear threat against Los Angeles and the high
likelihood that Gen. Xiong is brokering weapons of mass
destruction, it will be interesting to see who volunteers to
have his or her picture taken with him. 



<I>Edward Timperlake and William C. Triplett, II are the
authors of "Red Dragon Rising," Regnery 2002.</I>


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