China’s military is conducting research on sea-based neurotoxins, raising new fears among U.S. officials and analysts that Beijing is secretly developing deadly biological weapons for use in a future conflict.
Concerns about the marine toxin research were aired for the first time by the U.S. government earlier this month in the annual State Department arms control compliance report.
The report contended that China “continued to engage in biological activities with potential [biological weapons] applications, including possible development of toxins for military purposes, which raise concerns regarding its compliance with” the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), which went into effect in 1975 and was ratified by China in 1984.
China in the past was known to have developed germ weapons based on ricin, botulinum toxins, anthrax, cholera, plague and tularemia as part of a past biological arms program.
But the more recent disclosure of marine toxin work is the first time Beijing has been accused of conducting that type of strategic weapons research.
“The PLA’s research organizations have been conducting and directing military research related to dual-use marine toxins,” the report said.
The State Department also said China’s regular reports to other signatories of the BWC and Beijing’s own “confidence-building measures” failed to include information on the military marine toxin research.
Marine toxins are naturally occurring chemicals that are among the world’s most deadly poisons. They attack the central nervous system and can kill people exposed to very small amounts of the poisons.
Civilian research in China has focused on preventing marine toxin poisoning from seafood and shellfish, and U.S. intelligence suspects the People’s Liberation Army is using the research for weapons development. The report did not identify the specific marine toxins being worked on by PLA research institutes.
However, a Chinese government-sponsored research report from March 2014 revealed the military potential of toxins, including three types of marine toxins.
The report published in the Journal of Applied Biomedicine was funded by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China, a government organization.
It identified anatoxins, saxitoxins and tetrodotoxin as marine toxins as potential biological weapons.
Compliance questions
A State Department official told The Washington Times regarding the PLA marine toxin work that the United States believes China is conducting activities with potential biological weapons applications that raise concerns over compliance with the BWC.
While China signed on to the convention in 1984, it has never completely disclosed details regarding its past weapons programs as required, the report said.
A Chinese Embassy spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
China also halted talks with United States on chemical and biological weapons after the COVID-19 pandemic that began in Wuhan, China in late 2019.
“While it is unfortunate that the PRC has postponed previous regular bilateral chemical and biological weapons related consultations since 2020, we continue to press them on these matters in other meetings,” the U.S. official said, speaking on background.
Another government official familiar with the issue said China’s military research on marine toxins has been known within the U.S. government for years, but was kept secret until the latest compliance report.
James Madsen, a director the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense, said during a conference in 2019 that China is a world leader in toxin-based threats.
“China knows more about marine toxins in particular than any other country in the world,” said Mr. Madsen who is now retired. He declined to comment further when asked about the Chinese marine toxin threats.
The State Department official said the United States is continuing work with partners on addressing questionable Chinese chemical and biological activities. The goal is to raise awareness of the threat and build diplomatic pressure on Beijing to provide answers, the official said.
Thomas DiNanno, a former arms control official during the Trump administration, said the State Department failed to press the Chinese on the marine toxin work.
“Our plan was to ask some hard questions regarding their program of potential dual-use research,” said Mr. DiNanno who was assistant secretary of state of the arms control, verification and compliance bureau from 2018 to 2021 during the Trump administration.
“It looks like the Biden administration chose to just ignore it as too hard or too controversial. Either way it is not good,” he said.
Expanding the program
The PLA Academy of Military Medical Sciences is the main Chinese military organization in charge of biological defense work. The academy and 10 subordinate institutes were sanctioned by the Commerce Department in 2021.
Those sanctions, however, were related to military work on what the federal government said was PLA “brain-control weaponry” and not marine toxins.
Ryan Clarke, an expert on Chinese biological weapons at the National University of Singapore, said the disclosure of possible PLA marine toxin weaponization is significant. “It clearly indicates the continued expansion of the [Chinese Communist Party’s] bioweapons program,” he said.
“It also likely indicates that the CCP is increasing its focus on its uniformed armed wing, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), to develop battlefield bioweapons applications.”
Mr. Clarke, co-founder of the CCP BioThreats Initiative, said that until recently bioweapons development and deployment in China utilized clandestine networks.
“While this approach will continue, the increased involvement of the conventional PLA demonstrates that Beijing views bioweapons as core elements of the CCP’s standard order of battle. We are directly observing an escalatory process “ he said.
A recent report by the BioThreats Initiative, based on open-source information obtained in China, revealed that the PLA is engaged in secret biological weapons development that is a key part of Beijing’s asymmetric warfare strategy.
The report provided new details on PLA biological weapons efforts that researchers say control all civilian biological research in China.
“Bioweapons are part of the CCP’s standard order of battle; not an unconventional set of capabilities only to be used under extreme circumstances,” the report states.
An authoritative PLA textbook, “Science of Military Strategy,” includes a section identifying biology as a domain for military struggle. The book mentions the potential for new types of biological warfare to include “specific ethnic genetic attacks” designed to affect targeted ethnic groups.
Military ‘potential’
According to the Chinese-sponsored scientific report, anatoxins are neurotoxins produced by blue-green algae and “the potential use of anatoxins as a military weapon is very high.”
Saxitoxins are potent neurotoxins known as highly potent paralytic shellfish poisons. “Humans have died after ingesting as little as 1 mg of toxin,” the report said.
Tetrodotoxin, known as TTX, is a potent neurotoxin first isolated from puffer fish and also found in other marine organisms, including some species of octopuses, sea stars and crabs.
“There is no report of using TTX as a bioweapon, but due to its high toxicity, its potential as a weapon of terror cannot be discounted,” the report said.
China also is suspected of developing biological weapons from maitotoxin, or MTX, that has been described as the most potent marine toxin known, according to an intelligence source. It is produced by algae.
The Pentagon’s 2023 Biodefense Posture Review mentions the threat of biological weapons, including marine toxins and concerns about China’s biological warfare research.
Chinese publications “have called biology a new domain of war,” the report said.
The issue is expected to be discussed between U.S. and Chinese officials in Geneva at a meeting of the working group on strengthening the BWC set for August.
The United States appears to have used marine toxins during the Cold War. The CIA developed a marine toxin from clams, according to documents obtained by Patricia A. Tester, an ocean researcher.
Ms. Tester stated in a report she co-authored that documents from the Cold War uncovered at a military base in Alaska revealed that the CIA used Alaskan clams to obtain saxitonin as a replacement for its cyanide L-pills. The cyanide pills were issued to clandestine intelligence officers for use in preventing capture.
U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers carried a saxitoxin-laced needle inside a hollowed-out silver dollar that was to be used to kill himself if he was captured, the report said. Powers was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile over Russia but did not use the needle that the Russians suspected was tipped with curare.
Senate hearings from 1975 into CIA activities confirmed the CIA’s planned use of saxitonin, the report said.
The United States destroyed its biological weapons under the BWC, and the annual report said Washington announced that all its activities for biological defense last year were legal under the convention.
Russia’s government, in BWC channels, has accused the United States of illicitly working on biological weapons efforts through laboratories in Ukraine, a charge the State Department has denied.