Chinese Biowarfare Program: Existent?

You're totally right origno. I would just like to add to your statement that almost all major military powers have had some sort of biological weapons program, so we can be reasonably sure that China has at least done some research with bio weapons, but probably not put them into production.

I'm pretty sure China has a Biowarfare Program, but was closed down during the 90's? I think China signed something about this in the UN...

do china has bio warfare program, the answer is no.during the early 90's small group of american nuclear researcher visited china,during there conversation with leading Chinese researcher,they satated that China has no bio weapon program,but China may have non lethal chemical warfare program,there's been report that China attempted to obtain BZ gas technology from russia.

That makes sense.

Washington Post featured an article about a new top secret biowarfare lab established in Fort Detrick, Maryland some weeks ago. The author maintains that the US Army wants to conduct defensive experiments like simulations of virus epidemics within the new facility. Interestingly there is no speculation about who is expected to attack the US with bioweapons since bringing up Osama would only amuse little kids. Of course the conduct of these ´defensive experiments´will be above top secret for decades to come and may be they turn up to be not quite so defensive in fact.

According to former soviet scientist Ken Alibek the USSR had a vast offensive biowarfare program up to her collapse in 1991. Unfourtunately Alibek seems to confabulate sometimes but some information by him is reliable. One point of interest are the possible scenarios in which bioweapons would be a feasible military option.

1. USSR is loosing an allout war and there exists acute danger of succumbing to enemy attack (i.e. regime is disintegrating). In this case an agent would be spread with utmost secrecy in most parts of the world which would be very contagious but only lethal after a long time of incubation followed by a long phase of painful suffering. This agent would be some kind of virus like SARS and AIDS combined. The purpose of this plan would be that after the destruction of the USSR the US would not be able to control and exploit the planet economically and would be totally absorbed by the ensuring global chaos. ( Revenge out of the tomb scenario )

2. A severe situation of crisis exists but in the overall strategic situation the USSR´s position is weak (presumably because USSR is isolated by US alliances) and this reasoning demands avoiding an allout conflict with the US but backing down would result in unacceptable humiliation for the regime. Under this circumstances an agent would be spread (another highly secret operation of course) in areas around the periphery of the west (Latin America, Middle East, Africa) which would be very contagious and would kill after only some days (or mere hours, a modified and more lethal version of lassa or hanta type). The resulting chaos and suffering of large scale would serve as some kind of psychological warfare in the last hour of need. The US would perhaps descalate in the face of horror and focus on contolling the dangerous epidemic (Sovietunion would help of course) which already is a threat for western populations.

You might think that some strategists have simply lost their mind but in such extreme situations only extreme measures are justified. The death of may be dozens of millions is definetly better than killing billions and destroying the entire planet. At the height of the cold war the horror of biowarfare was simply a lesser evil than an allout nuclear war. Probably China will weigh her options in a similar reasoning but the strategic situation is completely different and China is much more advanced in biotech than the former USSR.
At least China will have to take in account what the army guys in Fort Detrick are ´conjuring up´ in their ´defensive experiments´.

Violet,

Excellent article. However, I think you missed a very important point. Those biological warfare R&D are done in secret, and they are continued to be kept in secrecy even after the government have a whole stockpile of them.

Why does this matter? Nuclear weapons are out in the open. Any country possessing them openly admit that they have it. That's the only way you can deter your enemy from using it in the first place. If you keep it in secrecy, then your enemy is not afraid of retalliation, therefore can and will use it against you.

Like I said before, because biological weapons are mostly kept in secrecy, they are not used to scare your enemies. Their sole purpose is to eradicate an entire ethic group.

At least one current member of the nuclear club play s actually semantics with the real substance of her arsenal: Israel. Officially Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the middle east, whatever that kind of talmudic wordmingling really means is subjected to everyones interpretation. Although about one fact there is absolutely no second guessing in Tehran, Cairo, Riyadh and even Islamabad: Israel´s Zahal will be able to incinerate every population center in their respective countries within 30 minutes if an israeli prime minister should ever give order to do so. Israel´s arsenal of more than 200 weapons is simply to massive for being ambiguous.

Also Pakistan in the early phase of her nuclear deterrent (1987-1997) and South Africa throughout the entire existence (1982-1990) of hers remained at least ambiguous about their nuclear capability but obviously both countries achieved the degree of deterrance effect they perceived neccessary.

As for your comment dear oringo:
Perhaps there is a level of deterrence invisible for the public or even informed professional and academic circles. Only very few people in the highest echelons of military and intelligence (and this only in major powers) are probably in the know what indeed genocidal effect new biogenetic weapons may have if the situation of total war between major powers like the US, China and Russia ever occurs. The fact that a global conflict between major powers cannot be won by one side is obviously not only dependent on nuclear weapons but also on carefully hidden arsenals of mass destruction (bioweapons and other dreadful gadgets). Deterrence works for a small highly priviledged group of elites, for informed circles (military, academia) and for the broad public in the same way: they must know what they need to know. In essence this fact is the cause why Armageddon has not come for 61 years and will hopefully stay away in our century too.