Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (AP File Photo) Also in Today's Post • Foreign Satellite Launches Needed to Meet Demand

By Helen Dewar and John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, July 15, 1998; Page A04

Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said yesterday a Senate probe has found that China received sensitive technology and military advantages under what he described as a "wholly inadequate" system of U.S. export controls. Democrats promptly denounced Lott's conclusions as unsubstantiated, partisan and irresponsible.

The acrimonious exchange underscored the election-year political significance that Republicans have attached to the issue of satellite exports to China but shed little light on facts in dispute during nearly two months of congressional investigations into the Clinton administration's handling of sensitive technology transfers.

Although Lott cited official committee testimony in his "interim report," aides said it was based on consultations with Republican committee and subcommittee chairmen whom Lott named earlier to an all-GOP task force charged with coordinating several committee probes on China. The findings did not represent committee conclusions, the aides said.

In one of his most provocative contentions, Lott said "new" and "significant" information has been learned about alleged Chinese government attempts to help finance 1996 electoral campaigns. He said it should "remove all resistance to naming an independent counsel to investigate the evidence and the allegations, adding: "It is time to end the stonewall and get to the truth."

Lott declined to say what this new information was. But other sources said he was probably echoing earlier comments on at least two occasions over the last couple of weeks by Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), chairman of the Senate select committee on intelligence. Shelby also has declined to offer details. A federal official confirmed that new information was conveyed but said it was not considered a major development.

Democrats earlier disputed Shelby's conclusions and reacted even more sharply to Lott's report.

It constitutes "one of the most partisan attacks to date by the majority leader on virtually any issue," said Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.). "I'm disappointed by the inaccuracy of the statements, by the recklessness of some of those statements and by the extraordinary politicization that it [Lott's report] now causes" for the committee investigations, Daschle argued.

Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), vice chairman of the intelligence panel, said Lott improperly left the impression that the findings were bipartisan. He was not aware of any interim report and did not participate in any way, Kerrey said. Nor has the committee reached any conclusions, he added. Kerrey accused Lott of "threatening our national security" by complicating bipartisan efforts to get to the bottom of the controversy.

Shelby's own response was cautious. "The majority leader is entitled to his own judgments or his own conclusions -- just like any of us," he told reporters. While Shelby said that he has made no "preliminary judgments" as intelligence committee chairman, he thought "some of the tendencies of the evidence tend to support the judgments he [Lott] has made."

At the White House, presidential spokesman Michael McCurry dismissed Lott's charges, saying, "If they weren't so flabbergasting, they'd be somewhat amusing." McCurry said he was reminded of "Alice in Wonderland" when Lott said that no final conclusions had been reached but that they had reached five interim judgments. "You know . . . sentence first, verdict afterwards, facts sooner or later forgotten," McCurry said.

In addition to his comments about Chinese political contributions, Lott made five "interim" findings: that the administration's export controls for satellites are inadequate, that sensitive technology has been transferred to China, that China received "military benefit" from satellite exports and that the administration ignored "overwhelming information regarding Chinese proliferation."

He also accused the administration of failing to provide information needed by the Senate in its committee probes and said it is "hard to escape the conclusion that delay has become the standard operating procedure." As a result, he added, "we will be forced to consider other measures to compel enforcement," including holding up action on nominees to agencies that do not cooperate and "examining our subpoena options" in order to force testimony.

Kerrey scoffed at the notion that information was being withheld. The administration has "gone overboard" in supplying committees with everything they have requested, he said. "We have so many documents now that we can't begin to read them all," he added.

In his report, Lott summarized allegations that critics of Clinton's anti-proliferation policy have made for years: that the administration has weakened regulatory controls on export of sophisticated U.S. technology, that it has tried to preserve space deals with China by avoiding invocation of trade sanctions and that its Commerce Department has "repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to ignore national security concerns on satellite exports."

Administration officials dispute those assertions. Congressional hearings have provided some evidence to support Lott's allegations on these points but less substantiation for his assertion that launching U.S. satellites in China has helped Beijing improve its ballistic missile program.

At the White House, Clinton aides said privately they were surprised by Lott's strategy in light of polls indicating that China was receding as an issue after Clinton's recent trip there and the generally favorable notices it received here. Lott, according to the aides, is apparently figuring that Republicans can still gain political traction on China if they step up criticism in a forceful way.

Staff writers John F. Harris and Roberto Suro contributed to this report.