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Chinese biological weapons program

The Chinese biological weapons program is a biological weapons program reported to have been active in the 1980s, and suspected by some governments and security analysts to remain covertly active. China is currently a signatory of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and Chinese officials have stated that China has never engaged in biological activities with offensive military applications. China was reported to have had an active biological weapons program in the 1980s. Members of the US intelligence community heavily suspect that the state of China had, as of 2015, at least 42 facilities that may be involved in research, development, production, or testing of biological agents.

During the Cold War, the Chinese government weaponized large quantities of ricin, botulinum toxins, anthrax, plague, cholera, and tularemia.

History

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright expressed her concerns over possible Chinese biological weapon transfers to Iran and other nations in a letter to US Senator Bob Bennett in January 1997. 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.

A large-scale Chinese state-run biological weapons program was reported to exist as recently as 2015, based on analysis from former IDF military intelligence officer Dany Shoham, integrating the findings of several different countries' defense agencies. The program reportedly includes at least 42 facilities that are involved in research, development, production, or testing of biological weapons (30 associated with the People's Liberation Army and 12 associated with the Chinese defense ministry). US intelligence agencies assumed as early as 1993 that the state of China had an operational, secretive, and sizable bioweapons arsenal that is "extremely hidden" but continuously upgraded.

The official position of the US Department of State, as published in a 2021 report, is that China likely operated an offensive bioweapons program before the 1984 signing of the BWC treaty, and continued to operate the program afterwards. The report also expresses concern that China may have transferred controlled biological weapons-related items to nations of international concern (e.g. Iran, similar to the Yinhe incident).

In 2017, a textbook published by the People's Liberation Army National Defence University called the Science of Military Strategy debuted the potential for biological warfare to include "specific ethnic genetic attacks." The same year, former People's Liberation Army general Zhang Shibo authored a book that concluded that "modern biotechnology development is gradually showing strong signs characteristic of an offensive capability," including "specific ethnic genetic attacks" (特定种族基因攻击). In 2020, a professor at the same PLA university spoke of the "huge war effectiveness" of a "targeted attack that destroys a race, or a specific group of people." A 2021 study by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies stated that the Chinese government's interest in biological weapons is driven by a recognition of its own vulnerability to genetic targeting due to a broadly homogenous population with more than 90 percent being ethnic Han Chinese.

According to Nuclear Threat Initiative, no evidence of the program's existence has been officially released by the Chinese government.

According to the 2023 China Military Power Report issued by the US Department of Defense: "the PRC continues to engage in biological activities with dual-use applications, which raise concerns regarding its compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). This includes studies at PRC military medical institutions on potent toxins with dual-use applications. The PRC likely possesses capabilities relevant to chemical and biological warfare that pose a threat to U.S., Allied, and partner forces, military operations, and civilian populations."

Accidents

Ken Alibek, former director of Biopreparat, the Soviet Union's largest biological warfare program, said that China suffered a serious accident at one of its biological weapons plants in the late 1980s. Alibek claimed that Soviet reconnaissance satellites had identified a biological weapons laboratory and plant near a site for testing nuclear warheads in western China. 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.