Beijing, PRC
Tuesday, October 5th, 1999, 8:03 a.m. local time
After graduating from the National Defense University, Fang Sun’s career took great leaps forward. First, upon graduation, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel; his new assignment was with the 71st Group Army staff headquartered in Xuzhou. When he checked in, three of its divisions were deployed into Beijing in an exercise to impose martial law if there was a replay of what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Sun was assigned as the group army’s chemical and biological warfare officer. Before reporting, he had attended a four-month-long school on chemical and biological warfare at the People’s Liberation Army’s School of Biological Warfare in Heilongjiang in the northeastern part of the country. Sun’s takeaway from the school and this assignment convinced him there were ways to use bioweapons off the battlefield to change a population’s trust in its government.
Three years later, he was promoted to colonel and given the command of the 535th Infantry Regiment in the 179th Motorized Infantry Division based in Nanjing. Fang Sun’s next billet was on the PLA’s General Staff as its Director, Unconventional Warfare, Strategic Plans Department. A year later, he was promoted to Senior Colonel.
The stocky, but not overweight senior colonel closed the door to his office after telling his administrative assistant that he did not want to be disturbed. He had just received a call from a People’s Republic Liberation Army general who was the chief of staff to the chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC). The caller told him to create a discussion document as soon as possible that expands on what they discussed the previous week. If the CMC thought the concept had merit, then Sun would be asked to develop a plan that the PLA would execute. His memo was sparked by an idea he developed after a visit to one of the PLA’s biological warfare sites.
The PRC signed the United Nations Biological Convention in 1984 but kept the biowarfare site he visited along with three other fully operational facilities. From his training, Sun knew they were in direct violation of the 1984 treaty. He knew that since the PRC was “accessing” the treaty, they would be legally bound by its provisions even though the PRC was not one of the original signatories. Accession, he learned at the Chemical Defense Command and Engineering College, had the same legal force as signing and ratifying a treaty. As far as Sun was concerned, treaty violations were the purview of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was just doing what he was told.
The 3,000 acres of the Chemical Defense and Command and Engineering College is located in the Changping District on the northern side of Beijing. Even though its title only mentioned chemical warfare, the school contained the PLA’s school on biological warfare.
Sun stacked all the routine paperwork on one side of his desk so only his original notes that led to the conversation with the chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), a copy of the U.N. Biological Convention in both English and Chinese, and a pad of note paper were in the center of his desk.
The note that came with the copy of the treaty said that the People’s Republic had accessed the treaty on November 15th, 1984, and was one of 183 nations that agreed to abide by the treaty. Sun re-read Article I of the U.N. Biological Weapons Convention:
No state shall ever in any circumstances develop, produce, stockpile, or otherwise acquire or retain:
1. Microbial or other biological agents, or toxins whatever their origin or method of production, of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes.
2. Weapons, equipment, or means of delivery designed to use or deploy such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in any armed conflict.
Sun didn’t care what the words said. He thought the treaty was just another attempt by the world, and the United States in particular, to restrain the People’s Republic’s freedom of action and keep his country from developing weapons that would enable it to become the dominant power of the world.
From his personal files from the bio-warfare course, Sun took out two charts he had asked one of the medical doctors at the school to help him create. One was for known bacteriological diseases and the second was for viruses.
Across the top of each, he had the names of diseases in alphabetical order using their English names. To be on either chart, the disease had to be highly communicable, and patients needed drug treatment(s) and/or hospitalization.
Vertically, the charts listed the answers to seven questions. The first was “Where is the disease found in the world?” Number two asked, “How was the disease transmitted?
Question three was, “Where was the disease found in nature?” Next on the list asked, “How was the disease transmitted?” which was followed by the fifth question, “What medicines or treatments were available to cure the disease?”
The next line gave the answer to the sixth question, “Is there an effective vaccine?” Question seven was “What were the mortality rates in four age groups – under 12; 13 – 25; 26 – 60; 61 and older?”
Sun had several pages of notes to support the entries on the charts’ entries on (279mm X 432mm or 11” X 17”) paper. The data reminded him that while many of the diseases were eradicated elsewhere in the world, some were still found in the southern parts of the People’s Republic.
Other than medical care and a lack of medicines, he had two questions: Why? And how could he use them to his country’s advantage?
His suggested course of action came from reading analyses and documents from biological research labs outside the PRC. Some were public, others he suspected by their markings had been stolen. Also in his possession were the People’s Republic’s internal analysis of the SARS pandemic and those from other countries.
Pencil in hand, Sun began writing. The words came easily since they had been formulating in his mind for months.
Project goal: create biological weapons that can overwhelm a target country’s medical system and enable the People’s Republic to achieve its foreign policy goals without using military force.
Project scope: the People’s Republic should:
- Create highly transmissive viruses or bacteriological agents with high infection rates while at the same time, developing vaccine(s) and/or drugs to treat the disease(s); and
- Once developed, recommend testing the agents on a prison population within the PRC to learn their effects.
Project execution: once new viruses/bacterial agents have been either identified or developed, the PRC can:
- Release the agents covertly.
- Once the target country’s population is infected, offer to “develop and produce” a vaccine. The swift deployment will demonstrate the superiority of the PRC’s medical research capabilities.
- PRC offers the vaccine to the country with a political/foreign policy price tag.
Recommendations: build one or more laboratories designed for this purpose and:
- Place them under the auspices of the Chinese Academy of Scientists.
- Fund the labs through monies appropriated for the PLA.
- Position the laboratories as medical research facilities so they will not be covered by the U.N. treaty.
- Acquire designs and equipment from the West since the PRC does not have the knowledge.
Timeline:
- The first lab can be built by the end of 2000 if work begins within three months.
- Estimate that the first “testable” weapon can be ready within 10 years.
Sun made several revisions, then retyped the memo and stamped the single sheet of paper Top Secret at the top and bottom. Once in an envelope marked Top Secret, he had the document couriered to the general who requested it.
