The Chinese biological weapons program is a biological weapons program reported to have been active in the 1980s, and alleged by some governments to be still active. China is currently a signatory of the Biological Weapons Convention and Chinese officials have stated that China has never engaged in biological activities with offensive military applications. However, China was reported to have had an active biological weapons program in the 1980s.[1]
Background
Kanatjan Alibekov, former director of one of the Soviet germ-warfare programs, said that China suffered a serious accident at one of its biological weapons plants in the late 1980s. Alibekov asserted that Soviet reconnaissance satellites identified a biological weapons laboratory and plant near a site for testing nuclear warheads. The Soviets suspected that two separate epidemics of hemorrhagic fever that swept the region in the late 1980s were caused by an accident in a lab where Chinese scientists were weaponizing viral diseases.[2]
US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright expressed her concerns over possible Chinese biological weapon transfers to Iran and other nations in a letter to Senator Bob Bennett (R-Utah) in January 1997.[3] Albright stated that she had received reports regarding transfers of dual-use items from Chinese entities to the Iranian government which concerned her and that the United States had to encourage China to adopt comprehensive export controls to prevent assistance to Iran's alleged biological weapons program. The United States acted upon the allegations on January 16, 2002, when it imposed sanctions on three Chinese firms accused of supplying Iran with materials used in the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons. In response to this, China issued export control protocols on dual use biological technology in late 2002.[4]
A large-scale Biological program by China was described in a 2015 study. It includes at least 42 facilities that are involved in research, development, production or testing of biological weapons. [5] According to assessment by US intelligence, the state of China has a highly secretive operational and sizable biological weapons arsenal, and this arsenal is continuously being upgraded[5]
References
- ^ Roland Everett Langford, Introduction to Weapons of Mass Destruction: Radiological, Chemical, and Biological, Wiley-IEEE, 2004
- ^ William J Broad, Soviet Defector Says China Had Accident at a Germ Plant, The New York Times, April 5, 1999
- ^ Leonard Spector, Chinese Assistance to Iran's Weapons of Mass Destruction and Missile Programs Archived 2009-06-11 at the Wayback Machine, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 12, 1996
- ^ Nuclear Threat Initiative, Country Profile: China Archived 2011-08-27 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b Dany Shoham (2015) China’s Biological Warfare Programme: An Integrative Study with Special Reference to Biological Weapons Capabilities, Journal of Defence Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2 April-June 2015, pp. 131-156 China’s Biological Warfare Programme. An Integrative Study with Special Reference to Biological Weapons Capabilities