Russia Boosting China’s Arsenal : Arms: U.S. is stymied as Beijing buys high-technology industrial base to produce cutting-edge weapons systems. Hundreds of Russian technicians are recruited.

WASHINGTON —  Russia’s extensive sales of advanced military technology to China are enabling Beijing to obtain core elements of the high-technology defense industries that made the Soviet Union a superpower, according to senior Bush Administration officials and private defense specialists.

As recently as last summer, Western concerns about the outflow of Russian military technology to China focused on individual weapons systems, such as SU-27 fighter planes and missile guidance systems. Now, officials say, there is evidence that the sales have widened and that China is acquiring a broad capability to design, produce and sustain its own modern, cutting-edge weapons systems.

“The Chinese are trying to transfer a high-technology industrial base from Russia to China,” a senior U.S. official said. “It’s both people and technology, for new guidance systems, cruise missiles, anti-submarine warfare, missile testing.”

U.S. officials say China has set up recruiting offices inside Russia and has hired hundreds of Russian technicians to work in Chinese defense plants, many of which were built with Soviet help during the Sino-Soviet alliance of the 1950s.

So far, the United States and its allies are stymied on how to respond. Despite their concerns, Bush Administration officials have tentatively decided not to impose sanctions on either Russia or China to curb the sales.

One reason is that President Boris N. Yeltsin’s political position in Russia is so fragile that the United States does not want to do anything that would add to the pressure on him.

Another factor, U.S. officials said, is that Russia is supplying China primarily with intangible items, such as scientists and technology, rather than missiles and other hardware that would clearly qualify for U.S. sanctions.

“This amounts to a massive transfer of technology for the industrial base for weapons of mass destruction,” a senior U.S. official said. Another expert, Paul Godwin of the National Defense University in Washington, said China is in the process of establishing “a full-scale defense-military-technology relationship with the Russians.”

The Times reported in July that China was buying advanced military equipment and technology from Russia. Some of the technology could increase the accuracy of Chinese missiles. Other technology could greatly enhance China’s ability to make weapons-grade nuclear fuel.

“The Chinese have been moving fast on this, because they are convinced that the United States and other Western countries are eventually going to put pressure on the Russians to stop,” Godwin said.

Another reason for the rapid pace of the transfers, U.S. officials say, is the low cost of the Russian equipment and technology, which are being sold at fire-sale prices.

While the primary emphasis has been on technology, the Russians are supplying some conventional weapons too. Earlier this month, Moscow’s Interfax news agency reported that China and Russia are already proceeding with arms deals worth a total of $1.4 billion for the sale of Russian SU-27 and MIG-29 fighter planes, Ilyushin 76 transport planes and antiaircraft weapons.

In addition, Interfax quoted Russian members of a new Russian-Chinese Military Technology Commission as saying that China is hoping to purchase Russian ships, diesel submarines and equipment for infantry worth $1.2 billion.

China’s government-run New China News Agency reported last month that an official delegation of Russian scientists had visited Beijing for talks with their Chinese counterparts on a number of joint endeavors, including a planned space mission to Mars. U.S. officials say there have also been recent moves toward intelligence-sharing between China and Russia.

Russian officials say the sales and technology transfers to China are made for commercial reasons, enabling Russian defense plants to earn some money at a time when they face massive cutbacks and layoffs. By some current estimates, about 400,000 Russians will be laid off from Russian defense industries in 1992 and early 1993. And 300,000 will have to be kept at work but retrained for civilian jobs.

“Yes, Russia has sold arms to China, and further discussions are under way,” said Vladimir O. Rakhmanin, one of Russia’s leading experts on China. “We are developing this military cooperation pursuant to our national interests. We will do this in a way that is not harmful to peace, regional security and stability.”

” . . . They (China) have a natural desire to upgrade their military technology,” said Rakhmanin, who now serves in the Russian Embassy in Washington. “It is not a question of (China’s) expansionist intentions but of prestige. Every country is selling arms now, and Russia is not alone. The United States is doing this too.”

Some U.S. officials said that recent U.S. arms deals, such as sales of American F-15 warplanes to Saudi Arabia and of F-16 fighters to Taiwan, make it harder for the United States to persuade other countries to curb their own military sales. The F-15 and F-16 deals were both announced by the Bush Administration during this fall’s presidential campaign.

Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Robert S. Strauss warned on Nov. 18 that “the Russians are getting tired” of hearing Americans tell them what they can and cannot do, particularly when “the American attitude is one of ‘Don’t do as I do, do as I say.’ ”

U.S. officials argue that there is a difference between transfers of conventional arms, such as U.S. jet fighters, and sales of the hardware or technology for weapons of mass destruction.

An international accord called the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) prohibits the export of either hardware or technology that can be used for missiles that have a range of more than about 190 miles. And a law passed by Congress in 1990 authorizes the United States to impose sanctions on any country or company that violates the MTCR.

Under this law, the Bush Administration imposed sanctions on China last year for providing missile equipment to Pakistan. Last spring, the Administration imposed limited sanctions on U.S. trade with the Russian and Indian space agencies because of Russia’s $250-million sale of technology for rocket engines to India.

In a series of internal policy debates, some U.S. officials have reportedly argued that the United States should impose sanctions on Russia for its sales to China. They contend that some of the Russian sales, including rockets or rocket technology, appear to qualify for the imposition of sanctions.

However, senior Administration officials have decided that it is not clear that the Russian sales violate U.S. law.

“If (the Russian sales) were sanctionable, we would have sanctioned them,” a senior official said. “You have to be able to prove it. We are still actively pursuing these cases, to see if any sanctionable activity is taking place. . . . The case isn’t closed yet.”

Russian transfers of nuclear technology to Beijing would not violate any U.S. law or the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty because China already is a nuclear weapons state. But nuclear experts note that Russia’s capacity to produce nuclear fuel through centrifuge techniques is far more advanced than any nuclear technology China now possesses.

Bush Administration officials have tried to use diplomatic channels to persuade Russia and China to limit technology transfers. But they admit that their efforts have so far not met with much success. The effort is complicated both by the U.S. desire to support Yeltsin in Russia and by Washington’s strained relations with China.

“It’s a very sensitive policy issue in our relations with both countries,” a State Department official said.

“We don’t want Yeltsin to fail,” said Jonathan Pollack, an expert on Sino-Russian relations at the RAND Corp.

Some State Department officials reportedly have said it will be virtually impossible to stop the transactions because of the desperate economic plight of Russian defense industries. And, some U.S. officials have argued, it is better for these sales to go to China than to Iran, another nation that is actively seeking to buy Russian military technology.

Russian diplomats have repeatedly told the United States that the sales are for peaceful purposes. China, meanwhile, has simply denied that the transactions are taking place. “There is no such thing at all,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said last month.

Some experts say the Russian-Chinese transactions are serious enough that they will require quick attention when President-elect Bill Clinton takes office.

“We have, potentially, a very big policy mess on our hands,” Pollack said. “The reality is that we do not know the full extent of these transactions, but I am persuaded there is quite a lot of it. The Chinese have a lot of incentives to get what they can while the going is good.”