The Cox Analysis in Understanding the Chinese Political Systems - Essay Example

COX REPORT Analysis In the years 1980s and 1990s, China’s operations within United s were termed as covert according to a report by US select committee led by Cox (commonly called Cox committee). The main aim to the operations of the committee was to investigate if sensitive information on US’s nuclear technology had leaked to the Chinese and used in design and making of mass destruction weapons. The US most advanced deigns of thermonuclear weapons information had been stolen and used by China for designing, developing as well as testing of the country’s nuclear weapons. The next generation of nuclear weapons would contain the design and intelligence as used by US hence threatening to have an equal capacity in effectiveness to the US’s production. This was espoused to present a great security threat to the US and the globe at large as the intelligence in missile and nuclear weaponry would be used for mass destruction. Stealing of such sensitive information from the US laboratories would have not occurred in isolation but rather much intelligence operations and investigations would have been involved in decades. Moreover, the report would note that the theft would not stop even after such discoveries, which increasingly posed a security threat to the country’s weapon intelligence. Supporters to the findings would reason that the information stolen had the capacity to aid in improvement of China’s military power as well as the country’s intelligence. However, according to China and other critiques, the report’s findings were baseless and would not be termed as factual or truthful. This therefore informs the main objective of this paper as being to determine the descriptive, explanatory and predictive analytical methods used by Cox led committee, intelligence community as well as the congressional research service in developing the report’s conclusion on the People’s Republic of China. The Cox report utilizes various methods of analysis in understanding the Chinese political systems, processes of decision making as well as in understanding how the economic interrelationship with military modernization in China are at play. The report was therefore meant to present a clear visual perspective in which China acquired and grows in nuclear energy, missile technology as well as in computer technology. However, one would wonder why a tool of analysis of the manners of policy making within China was necessary within the report on nuclear as well as missile espionage. Through analyzing the political scene, the report finds that China runs under an extremely centralized system in making decision where government decisions, military decisions as well as economic activities are influenced by only a few persons who have extreme powers. The “Chinese communist party” holds supremacy in power, which therefore explains how power is more centralized in the country governance structure. It is through this analytical tool that the report points towards the ‘undesirable’ political leadership of a sovereign state. The report findings are however critiqued as being reliant on skewed research on organizational structure with the political framework of China. Cox report therefore illustrates totalitarian kind of a system, which is all highly coordinated with a particular attention towards the challenge of US interest. Despite the challenge in lack of scientific prove of such (if any) weakness in having a totalitarian system of governance, the Cox report finding would be seen as authentic for the reason that China still runs under communism regime. The discussion of the ‘sixteen character policy’ is adopted in the report while analyzing the interrelationship between military modernization and the economic development. Accordingly, the tool is used in the report to illustrate how the civilian economy is subordinated for military modernization. The sixteen characters are therefore translated as combining military and civilian, combination of wartime and peacetime, prioritizing martial products as well as the use of nationals in support of army1. The analysis on the doctrine of military within China, the report strives to explain how China has been in need of US military nuclear or missile technologies. China is increasingly pursuing the route into becoming a superpower and overcoming US in matters of economic strength, military strength as well as in technology. The report also focuses on stressing on the eminent threat that China military empowerment poses to the US security. However, through this analytical approach, the report misplaces the positioning of China concerning the nuclear power through the alleged transfer of nuclear technology from US to China in the 1980s. From the report by Cox and committee, the use of effective tools of analysis reveals that the political, economic as well as military power and modernization of China lacks authenticity as it’s based on skewed research, lack of factual support as well as inferences that are weak for supporting this research. In the report, Cox and committee alleges that ‘the PRC has stolen design information on the most advanced US nuclear weapons, including every currently deployed thermonuclear warhead in the US ballistic missile arsenal and the neutron bomb, which the United States has not deployed’ 2. However, analysis of the Chinese nuclear technology, computer models have been there over long period hence the question of authenticity of the report facts and findings. In interpretation and for support of the report findings, the report presented some conclusions that were not founded on any fact or truth. For instance, the statement that ‘The CCP’s main aim for the civilian economy is to support the building of modern military weapons and to support the aims of the PLA’ is used repeatedly and is misguiding in making conclusions in that defensively, the Chinese would argue against the truth of this statement. The proponents of the building of civilian economy would be meant for improvement of ordinary civilian’s lives. Besides, this would enable China to exercise its image in matters of global major powers. It is therefore error some for the Cox report to argue that the essence of the empowerment of civilian economy is inherently meant to empower the CCP as against the citizens. According to the ‘sixteen character policy’, military development represents the objective of general modern economic and military empowerment as is crafted by the CCP. The main essence in the Cox report alluding to the policy of sixteen characters is informed by the powered is however underemphasized by the arguments by Gill and Frankensten who argued that it is only concerned with the conversion in military and industrial enterprises as directed by the state and municipal councils. The central intelligence agency however issued a damage assessment DCI statement, which would be used alongside the report by Cox and the team. This is because the committee, which produced the Cox report, was interpreted as being bipartisan and hence furthering US security as well as commercial interest. An independent nuclear and security panel therefore developed the DCI tool to be used while studying the Cox report. The descriptive methods used in the report can therefore be shown to be varied although they lack research/scientific support. The method was utilized while evaluating the leakage of weapons through which the committee resolved that insufficiency in security detail operating the national laboratories led to the stealing of the design information by the PRC. This was seen as a threat to the US security and long-term leadership in the global supremacy in power as the PRC would advance own interest in long-term power against the US. However, this method fails to quantify the amounts of technology that the Chinese people managed to steal from the American laboratories. However, one thing was evident through the method that the stealing plot had not just been a single day’s activity but that the technology had been stolen since 1970s but it was only after the 1995 that this was noticed. In an explanatory method, the report states that the committee received a list of classified documents from CIA who had gotten it from an agent from China. The list outlined a number of illegally acquired information of design as used by the US. The justification on the initial failure of China to successfully launch a W-70 warhead in the 1980’s would justify that the technology used was not their original one and this would support the possibility of furtherance of these agents to still more information on missile and nuclear from US laboratories in the 1990s. Investigative reports by the DOE and FBI revealed the presence of high-ranking security personnel who were of Chinese personalities and who would be associated with the thefts although with no action taken to stop the issue before 1999. This information was equally utilized while composing the Cox report for explaining the occurrences during the periods associated with the theft. The report supposed that China would be highly interested in gaining more information on the maintenance and future tests for the nuclear weaponry hence the enemas theft of the information from the security systems within the US. The lack of enough security in the national laboratories was therefore much used while conducting the investigations by the team as it formed among the most reliable explanations that would explain how such sensitive information to the sovereign security would leak out. In projecting into the future, the Cox led committee presented a list of recommendations, which were meant to help shape the future of the US security on nuclear intelligence. Bill Clinton then called for hiring of higher counterintelligence personnel in the laboratories with a doubling of the budgetary allocation to the department3. He also called for a change in processes adopted for screening and approval to foreign visits into the US in efforts to curb such vices as espionage. More and extensive security reviews were called for especially to the security scientists working at the helm of national security programs. The proliferation of weapons from US would have been shown as the main security threat by the report though Cox and committee ignored it. The analysis carried out by the committee while preparing the report revealed that much investigation into the security position in the country had been done although little information was put tom public domain and or acted upon. In fact, many sections of the Cox report were censored on grounds of security for the country. Through strategic analysis, the report showed that China is a known proliferators of such security information hence the decision to check on the information released. In fact, Cox and committee show that the world is relatively unsafe because of such revealed carelessness in handling such sensitive information on nuclear and missile technology. The subsequent governments that have been in power after the release of the Cox report has been shown to act insignificantly on the report’s findings. This has been critiqued by supporters of Cox report in that this equally places US in the same dilemma as the other countries with such sensitive information in circulation. The Cox report would therefore have to be acted upon if stability in matters of security on nuclear and missile was to be ensured. In conclusion, this report has concentrated on analyzing the Cox report rather critically to establish the methods adopted in describing, analyzing as well as predicting security position within the US with the allegations of espionage of missile and nuclear intelligence by the RPC. The findings indicate that the Cox led committee relied on intensified information as gotten from various intelligence branches in the nation. Much of the report is inscribed to security looseness by the Security systems within US laboratories in US. This is how much of the information that leaked out was done, although over many years. However, critiques would point that the report findings are much skewed because of preconceptions on US and China battles of power and supremacy. They would reason that ascribing espionage to China was only a justification that China is tirelessly working towards higher-level intelligence in nuclear and missile technology and nothing towards threatening US supremacy. However, acknowledgement of the report findings has it that Bill Clinton towards called for immediate measures towards restructuring the security system and counterintelligence in US. Much of the information relied upon for the report was deductive, predictive and explanatory but little of research findings. Bibliography Bhattacharjee, Anjali. “Politics and Proliferation: Analysis and Summary of the Cox Committee Report and the Allegations of Chinese Nuclear Espionage.” BITS, 1999. Johnston, Alastair Iain et al ‘The Cox Committee Report: An Assessment’ 1999. Read More