Extended Taiwan nuclear weapons program cited

By GEORGE JAHN
The Associated Press

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most read articles Most e-mailed articles

It had been known that Taiwan briefly revived its nuclear-weapons-research program in the 1980s, and the revelations confirm suspicions that plutonium separation experiments were carried out at that time.

Taiwan first launched its nuclear-weapons program in the 1960s, but suspended it in the following decade under pressure from the United States, which apparently feared the response from Taiwan's rival China.

Taiwan's government has never acknowledged having a secret weapons program, according to analysts.

The experiments were uncovered in inspections and testing conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency after the Taiwanese government agreed to voluntary extra controls on the country's peaceful nuclear program, the diplomats said.

The diplomats told The Associated Press that their information was based on preliminary samples taken in Taiwan by IAEA inspectors indicating that plutonium separation experiments probably continued until about 20 years ago.

The diplomats, who are familiar with the IAEA, spoke on condition of anonymity. Officials at the Vienna-based IAEA said they would not comment.

One of the diplomats cautioned against drawing parallels between Taiwan and South Korea, whose government recently acknowledged that its scientists once dabbled in extracting plutonium and enriching uranium — both of which can be used to make nuclear arms.

While the South Korean revelations reflected continued secret weapons-related research, it was common knowledge that Taiwan had engaged in nuclear-weapons research after China exploded its first bomb in the 1960s, the diplomat said.

What the agency now was trying to do was to flesh out details of the Taiwanese program, with environmental sampling and other methods, he said.

Andrew Yang, a defense analyst at the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies, a Taipei think tank, said that it has long been common knowledge in Taiwan that the island's nuclear scientists were working on a bomb in the 1970s and 1980s.
 
"I don't think they got anywhere close to building a nuclear device," Yang said. "But they did have the technology and the know-how."

The program was shut down and U.S. officials sealed off the laboratories and test sites in 1988 shortly after a military officer involved in the project, Chang Hsien-yi, defected to the United States with computer information about the program.

The project was approved by the late President Chiang Kai-shek, father of the late Taiwanese President Chiang Ching-kuo. The elder Chiang in 1965 ordered that the nuclear-bomb study move from research to development, the book said.

The Washington Post cited official U.S. sources in an Aug. 29, 1976, report that said Taiwan had been secretly reprocessing for some time and had been producing plutonium for a nuclear weapon. The same article said that Washington, D.C., demanded Chiang Ching-kuo dismantle the reprocessing facility and ship back related equipment to the United States.

Chiang accepted the U.S. demands and asserted that Taiwan had no intention to develop nuclear weapons. He issued a statement on Jan. 23, 1977, supporting President Jimmy Carter's call for a total ban on nuclear testing.