A Chinese Puzzle for Clinton

By Janice Castro

TO THE END, GEORGE BUSH CLUNG TO HIS POLICY OF NORMALIZing relations with China. Five days before leaving office, he swept aside vehement objections from the Defense Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the intelligence community, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and several members of Congress to go ahead with plans to sell a CRAY SUPERCOMPUTER to the People's Republic. China maintains that it will use the M92 computer only for weather forecasting. But it could easily enhance China's nuclear weapons and missiles programs. Capable of executing 650 million calculations per second, the M92 can simulate nuclear reactions to test designs, for example, speeding development of weapons. Worse, critics fear that the Chinese may share the Cray with Iran, which is pressing hard to develop nuclear capability. President Clinton can stop the sale, but he'll also need to reassure allies like Japan and Israel. Says one federal proliferation expert: "We have extreme security concerns with China. They are exporting technology for weapons of mass destruction to very bad places."