Cox Report
The Report of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, commonly known as the Cox Report after Representative Christopher Cox, is a classified U.S. government document reporting on the People's Republic of China's covert operations within the United States during the 1980s and 1990s.
Committee created by the U.S. House of Representatives
The report was the work product of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China. This special committee, created by a 409–10 vote of the U.S. House of Representatives on June 18, 1998, was tasked with the responsibility of investigating whether technology or information was transferred to the People's Republic of China that may have contributed to the enhancement of the nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles or to the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction.A similar investigation had already begun in the U.S. Senate under the leadership of Senator Fred Thompson. Thompson had opened his hearings on China's influence in America's 1996 presidential and congressional elections 11 months earlier.
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Major allegations
The Cox Report contained five major allegations about China and nuclear weapons.- China stole design information regarding the United States' seven most advanced thermonuclear weapons.
- These stolen secrets enabled the PLA to accelerate the design, development and testing of its own nuclear weapons.
- China's next generation of nuclear weapons would contain elements of stolen U.S. design information and would be comparable in effectiveness to the weapons used by the United States.
- Small warheads based on stolen U.S. information could be ready for deployment in 2002 also enabling China to integrate MIRV technology on its next generation of missiles.
- These thefts were not isolated incidents, but rather the results of decades of intelligence operations against U.S. weapons laboratories conducted by the Ministry of State Security. In addition, the report described the illegal activity likely persisted despite new security measures implemented as a result of the scandal.
Reactions
U.S. Government
The Cox Report's release prompted major legislative and administrative reforms. More than two dozen of the Select Committee's recommendations were enacted into law, including the creation of a new National Nuclear Security Administration to take over the nuclear weapons security responsibilities of the United States Department of Energy. At the same time, no person has ever been convicted of providing nuclear information to the PRC, and the one case that was brought in connection to these charges, that of Wen Ho Lee, fell apart.In response to the allegations contained in the report, the CIA appointed retired U.S. Navy Admiral David Jeremiah to review and assess the report's findings. In April 1999, Admiral Jeremiah released a report backing up the Cox Report's main allegation that stolen information had been used to develop or modernize Chinese missiles and/or warheads.
PRC Government
The Chinese government called all allegations "groundless".Academia
remarked that stolen information regarding the W-70 and W-88 warhead would not appear to directly impair U.S. national security since to develop weapons based on this technology would require a massive investment in resources and not be in their best strategic interests with regard to their nuclear program.An assessment report that was published by Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation said that the language of the Cox report "was inflammatory and some allegations did not seem to be well supported."