GOP Wants Wider Probe of China Technology Transfers
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WASHINGTON — Republican congressional leaders on Sunday called for hearings and threatened sanctions against the Clinton administration if it is found to have looked the other way while Chinese spies raided U.S. nuclear warfare technology.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said that “the administration continues to resist really getting into what caused the problem and solving the problem” of spying and unauthorized technology transfers to China.
The FBI is investigating whether a scientist at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico gave China advanced technology concerning the miniaturization of nuclear warheads. The investigation was begun in 1996, after U.S. intelligence obtained a top-secret 1988 Chinese document that indicated Chinese scientists had become aware of U.S. miniaturization techniques.
National security spokesman P.J. Crowley said Sunday that the administration has “instituted a series of very strong measures to improve security and counterintelligence” at the Energy Department’s laboratories.
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