The New York Times - USA (2020-08-06)

A10 Y THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALTHURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2020

TAIPEI, Taiwan — The United
States’ top health official, Alex M.
Azar II, will lead a delegation on a
trip to Taiwan, a rare high-level
visit to the island by an American
official that is likely to further fray
ties between Beijing and Wash-
ington.
Mr. Azar, the secretary of health
and human services, will be the
highest-ranking American official
to visit since 1979, the year the
U.S. severed its formal ties with
Taiwan and established diplomat-
ic relations with the Chinese gov-
ernment in Beijing.
No date was given for Mr.
Azar’s trip to Taiwan, a self-ruled
island that the Chinese govern-
ment claims as its territory. But in
a statement on Tuesday, the
health department billed it as an
opportunity to strengthen eco-
nomic and public health coopera-
tion with Taiwan and to highlight
its success in battling the coro-
navirus pandemic.
“Taiwan has been a model of
transparency and cooperation in
global health during the Covid-
pandemic and long before it,” Mr.
Azar said in the department’s
statement. “I look forward to con-
veying President Trump’s support
for Taiwan’s global health leader-
ship and underscoring our shared
belief that free and democratic so-
cieties are the best model for pro-
tecting and promoting health.”
As of Tuesday, the island of 23
million just off the coast of south-
eastern China had reported just
476 coronavirus cases and seven
deaths. Officials in Taiwan have
tried to turn that success into a
geopolitical victory. Its govern-

ment has sent millions of masks,

emblazoned with the words

“made in Taiwan,” to the United

States, Italy and other countries

devastated by the coronavirus.

It has also promoted itself as a

model of democracy, even as

China tries to use the crisis to pro-

mote the strength of its authori-

tarian system.

On Wednesday, a spokesman

for China’s Ministry of Foreign Af-

fairs said China was “firmly op-

posed to official interactions be-

tween the U.S. and Taiwan,” with-

out mentioning Mr. Azar by name.

The spokesman, Wang Wenbin,

urged the United States to adhere

to the “one China principle,” which

holds that mainland China and

Taiwan are part of a single coun-

try, so as not to “gravely damage

Sino-U.S. relations and the peace

and stability of the Taiwan Strait.”

“China has lodged solemn rep-

resentations with the U.S.,” Mr.

Wang said at a regular briefing,

adding that Taiwan was “the most

important and sensitive issue in

China-U.S. relations.”

Beijing has long sought to iso-

late Taiwan diplomatically and ob-

jected to U.S. support for the is-

land, which remains an important,

though unofficial, American ally

in the Pacific region. Though the

United States has been cautious

about making official contact with

Taiwan, it continues to be the is-

land’s leading arms supplier.

Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said

on Wednesday that Mr. Azar

would meet with senior Taiwan-

ese leaders, including President

Tsai Ing-wen. Discussions are ex-

pected to touch on Taiwan’s role as

a supplier of medical equipment

and critical technology, among

other issues, the U.S. health de-

partment said.

The island is home to one of the

world’s leading computer chip

makers, Taiwan Semiconductor

Manufacturing Company, and is a

major manufacturer of medical

masks and other hospital equip-

ment.

Mr. Azar will also deliver a

speech in which he will highlight

“Taiwan’s constructive role in the

international community, espe-

cially in global public health,” the

statement said.

The trip threatens to further

fuel tensions between the United

States and China, with diplomatic

ties reaching their lowest point

since the two countries normal-

ized relations more than four dec-

ades ago.

The superpowers are locked in

a fast-growing battle on multiple

fronts, including in trade, technol-

ogy, defense and human rights.

Both the United States and China

have recently stepped up military

activity in the region, sparking

concerns about the risk of a clash

over Taiwan or the South China

Sea.

In addition, Beijing has in re-

cent years steadily picked off Tai-

wan’s few remaining official allies

and has blocked Taiwan’s partici-

pation as an observer in the World

Health Assembly, the World

Health Organization’s top deci-

sion-making body.

The tension between Beijing

and Taiwan dates to the end of

China’s civil war in 1949, when the

Communist Party defeated its Na-

tionalist enemies, who fled to the

island and set up the Republic of

China government, which still

governs the island today. Unifica-

tion with Taiwan remains one of

the Chinese Communist Party’s

ultimate goals, and in recent

years, China’s top leader, Xi Jin-

ping, has bluntly warned that any

move toward formal independ-

ence by the island would invite

military force.

Mr. Azar’s trip will be the first

by a U.S. health secretary and the

first in six years by a U.S. cabinet

member, according to the health

department. The last trip by a U.S.

cabinet-level official to Taiwan

was in 2014 by Gina McCarthy,

then the administrator of the En-

vironmental Protection Agency.

The Health and Human Serv-

ices Department did not say

whether Mr. Azar would attend an

official memorial that has been es-

tablished in Taipei, Taiwan’s capi-

tal, for Lee Teng-hui, the former

Taiwanese president who died

last week.

In a statement offering his con-

dolences, Secretary of State Mike

Pompeo praised Mr. Lee, who led

the island’s transformation into a

vibrant democracy, crediting him

with ending decades of authori-

tarianism and ushering in a “new

era of economic prosperity, open-

ness and the rule of law.”

The announcement of Mr.

Azar’s visit comes as coronavirus

case numbers have been surging

throughout most of the United

States. More than 4.7 million peo-

ple there have been infected and

at least 157,100 have died, accord-

ing to a New York Times database.

U.S. Health Secretary’s Planned Taiwan Visit Risks Provoking Beijing

By AMY QIN

A visit by Alex M. Azar II, left, is billed as highlighting Taiwan’s success in battling the pandemic.

AL DRAGO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Claire Fu contributed research.

The highest-ranking

American to stop at

the island since 1979.

ated since President Trump aban-
doned the 2015 nuclear deal with
Tehran. Crown Prince Moham-
med bin Salman pledged in 2018
that his kingdom would try to de-
velop or acquire nuclear weapons
if Iran continued its work toward a
bomb.
Last week, the House Intelli-
gence Committee, led by Repre-
sentative Adam B. Schiff, Demo-
crat of California, included a pro-
vision in the intelligence budget
authorization bill requiring the
administration to submit a report
about Saudi efforts since 2015 to
develop a nuclear program, a
clear indication that the commit-
tee suspects that some unde-
clared nuclear activity is going on.
The report, the provision
stated, should include an assess-
ment of “the state of nuclear co-
operation between Saudi Arabia
and any other country other than
the United States, such as the Peo-
ple’s Republic of China or the Rus-
sian Federation.”
An article in The Wall Street
Journal on Tuesday said that
Western officials were concerned

about a different facility in Saudi
Arabia, in the country’s northwest
desert. The Journal said it was
part of a program with the Chi-
nese to extract uranium yellow-
cake from uranium ore. That is a
necessary first step in the process
of obtaining uranium for later en-
richment, either for use in a civil-
ian nuclear reactor or, enriched to
much higher levels, a nuclear
weapon.
Saudi Arabia and China have
publicly announced a number of
joint nuclear projects in the king-
dom — including one to extract
uranium from seawater — with
the stated goal of helping the
world’s largest oil producer de-
velop a nuclear energy program
or become a uranium exporter.
Intelligence officials have
searched for decades for evidence
that the Saudis are seeking to be-
come a nuclear weapons power,
fearful that any such move could
result in a broader, destabilizing
nuclear arms race in the Middle
East. So far, Israel is the only nu-
clear weapons state in the region,
a status it has never officially con-
firmed.
In the 1990s, the Saudis helped
bankroll Pakistan’s successful ef-
fort to produce a bomb. But it has
never been clear whether Riyadh
has a claim on a Pakistani weap-
on, or its technology. And 75 years
after the detonation of the first nu-
clear weapon used in war — the
anniversary of the Hiroshima
blast is Thursday — only nine na-
tions possess nuclear weapons.
But ever since the debacle of the
Iraq invasion in 2003, based in on

faulty assessments that Saddam

Hussein was restarting the coun-

try’s once-robust nuclear pro-

gram, intelligence agencies have

been far more reluctant to warn of

nuclear progress for fear of re-

peating a colossal mistake.

At the White House, Trump ad-

ministration officials seem rela-

tively unperturbed by the Saudi

effort. They say that until the Ira-

nian nuclear program is perma-

nently terminated, the Saudis will

most likely keep the option open

to produce their own fuel, leaving

open a pathway to a weapon.

But now the administration is in

the uncomfortable position of de-

claring it could not tolerate any

nuclear production ability in Iran,

while seeming to remain silent

about its close allies, the Saudis,

for whom it has forgiven human

rights abuses and military adven-

turism.

Mr. Trump and his top aides

have built close ties to the Saudi

leadership, playing down the

killing of the journalist and Saudi

dissident Jamal Khashoggi and

enlisting the crown prince in so-

far fruitless Middle East peace ef-

forts.

It also comes at a time when the

Trump administration is ag-

gressively taking on China on nu-

merous fronts, like its handling of

the novel coronavirus and its ef-

forts to crack down on freedoms in

Hong Kong. So far, the White

House has said nothing about Chi-

na’s array of nuclear deals with

the Saudis.

Spokespeople for the National

Security Council and the C.I.A. de-

clined to comment. A spokesman

for the Saudi Embassy in Wash-

ington did not respond to a mes-

sage seeking comment.

From the beginning of his ad-

ministration, Mr. Trump has con-

ducted negotiations with the

Saudis over an agreement, which

would require congressional ap-

proval, enabling the United States

to help Saudi Arabia build a civil-

ian nuclear program.

But the Saudis would not agree

to the kinds of restrictions that the

United Arab Emirates signed onto

several years ago, committing the

country never to build its own

fuel-production ability, which

could be diverted to bomb produc-

tion. Administration officials say

the negotiations have been essen-

tially stalled for the past year.

Saudi Arabia’s work with the

Chinese suggests that the Saudis

may have now given up on the

United States and turned to China

instead to begin building the

multibillion dollar infrastructure

needed to produce nuclear fuel.

China has traditionally not in-

sisted on such strict nonprolifera-

tion safeguards, and is eager to

lock in Saudi oil supplies.

Regional experts say part of the

Saudi calculation stems from the

view that the kingdom can no

longer count on America’s willing-

ness to counter Iran.

That view gained more cur-

rency in the kingdom after the

Obama administration signed the

2015 nuclear deal with Iran,

known as the J.C.P.O.A. It forced

Iran to give up 97 percent of its

fuel stockpile, but left open a path

to production in the future.

“They believe that as a result of

the J.C.P.O.A. they can’t rely on

anyone reining in the Iranians,

and they are going to have to deter

Iran themselves,” said Rolf

Mowatt-Larssen, a former C.I.A.

officer and director of intelligence

and counterintelligence at the En-

ergy Department.

The irony, Mr. Mowatt-Larssen

said, is that Saudi Arabia has

sought both civilian nuclear part-

nerships and defense agreements

with two powers — Russia and

China — that have deep economic

ties to Iran.

Saudi Arabia has spent years

developing a civilian nuclear pro-

gram, and has a partnership with

Argentina to build a reactor in the

kingdom. But it has rejected limits

on its own ability to control the

production of nuclear fuel and it

has been systemically acquiring

skills — uranium exploration, nu-

clear engineering, and ballistic

missile manufacturing among

them — that would position it to

develop its own weapons if it de-

cided to do so.

“It’s never been in doubt,” said

Thomas M. Countryman, the as-

sistant secretary of state for inter-

national security and nonprolifer-

ation from 2011 to 2017. “They see

a value in having a latent capabili-

ty to produce their own fuel and

perhaps their own weapons.”

The Saudis have been relatively

open about their interest in devel-

oping the ability to enrich ura-

nium, a radioactive element that

is a main fuel of both power reac-

tors and nuclear warheads.

Last year, a document titled,

“Updates on Saudi National

Atomic Energy Project,” posted

by the International Atomic Ener-

gy Agency, or I.A.E.A., in Vienna,

detailed a plan for building civil-

ian reactors as well as fueling

them through the “localization” of

uranium production.

The same document said the

kingdom was looking for uranium

deposits in more than 10,

square miles of its own territory

(an area about the size of Massa-

chusetts) and had teamed up with

Jordan to make yellowcake, a con-

centrated form of uranium ore. Its

production is an intermediate step

on the road to enriching uranium

into nuclear fuel.

The facilities under intelligence

scrutiny have thus far not been

declared to the I.A.E.A. The

agency monitors compliance with

the Nuclear Nonproliferation

Treaty, which Saudi Arabia signed

decades ago.

“The I.A.E.A. is unhappy with

Saudi Arabia because they refuse

to communicate about their exist-

ing program and where it is go-

ing,” said Robert Kelley, a former

inspector for the atomic agency

and a former official at the

Lawrence Livermore National

Laboratory in California.

The site identified by American

intelligence as possibly nuclear in

purpose lies in a secluded desert

area not too far from the Saudi

town of Al-Uyaynah and its Solar

Village, a famous Saudi project to

develop renewable energy.

David Albright, the president of

the Institute for Science and Inter-

national Security, a private group

in Washington that tracks nuclear

proliferation, analyzed commer-

cial satellite images of the desert

site.

In a five-page report, Mr. Al-

bright described the facility, built

from 2013 to 2018, as suspicious

given its relative isolation in the

Saudi desert and its long access

road.

A satellite image taken in 2014,

before the structure had a roof, he

said, revealed the installation of

four large yellow cranes for lifting

and moving heavy equipment

across sprawling high-bay areas.

Mr. Albright added that each

building also had adjoining two-

story offices and areas for support

personnel.

He noted that his examination

of satellite images could identify

no signs of processing equipment

or raw materials arriving at the

desert facility.

In his report, Mr. Albright found

the appearance of the Saudi build-

ings to be roughly comparable to

that of Iran’s uranium conversion

facility, a plant that was designed

by China in the city of Isfahan. It is

central to Iran’s nuclear ambi-

tions.

But Mr. Kelley expressed skep-

ticism that the satellite images

showed evidence of secret nuclear

work. The Uyaynah site, he said,

“has been identified for years as a

joint U.S.-Saudi solar cell develop-

ment facility.”

“That is exactly what it looks

like in satellite imagery,” he said.

Still, Mr. Kelley added, “I am

completely convinced that Saudi

Arabia and China are actively co-

operating on plans for uranium

mining and yellowcake produc-

tion” elsewhere in the kingdom.

Frank Pabian, a former satellite

image analyst at the Los Alamos

National Laboratory in New Mex-

ico, located a desert site that

seemed to match the facility de-

scribed in The Journal article. It

appears to be a small mill for turn-

ing uranium ore into yellowcake.

It has a checkpoint, high security

fences, a large building about 150

feet on a side and ponds for the

collection of uranium waste — a

signature of such mills. The rug-

ged desert site is in northwestern

Saudi Arabia just south of Al-Ula,

a small town once on the trade

route for incense.

Satellite imagery shows that

construction of the Al-Ula site be-

gan in 2014, roughly the same time

facility work got underway near

Al-Uyaynah.

A satellite image from May showing the site of what some analysts think could be a Saudi nuclear facility with a secured perimeter.

MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES/GOOGLE EARTH

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with China’s president, Xi

Jinping. Beijing is helping the Saudis develop nuclear expertise.

LIU WEIBING/XINHUA, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

Saudis’ Nuclear Goals

Draw Scrutiny by U.S.

And Set Off Alarms

From Page A

Allies’ activities put

the White House in an

uncomfortable spot.