Israel Confirms It Has Been Selling Arms to China, as CIA Reported

JERUSALEM — A top Defense Ministry official confirmed Tuesday that Israel has been selling arms to China, but he refused to comment on CIA assessments that the deals may be worth billions of dollars and have included high-tech gear.

The United States is concerned about a Chinese military buildup and Beijing’s export of arms to Iran, Pakistan and other countries potentially hostile to the West.

The release of the CIA assessment, which bolstered numerous reports about Israeli-Chinese arms deals over the past decade, coincided with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s first official visit to China.

David Ivri, director general of the Israeli Defense Ministry, arrived in Beijing on Sunday with Rabin and has been meeting with Chinese officials. Ivri, in an interview Tuesday with Israel Radio, confirmed the arms sales, which Israel has acknowledged in the past.

The four-paragraph CIA assessment was provided to the U.S. Senate Government Affairs Committee, which requested the CIA’s views for a broader report on arms proliferation threats of the 1990s that the panel released last week.

In the report, CIA Director R. James Woolsey said the sales have gone on for more than a decade and that equipment sold to China included programs for jet fighters, air-to-air missiles and tanks.