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Katherine Johnson’s mathematical calculations helped guide some of America’s most important early space missions while she confronted the racial and gender barriers faced by Black women in twentieth-century America.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
The People's Republic of China (PRC) was reported to have operated a biological weapons program during the Cold War.[1]: 147 The United States Department of State stated that two facilities in Beijing and Lingbao City, from the 1950s to 1987, weaponized large quantities of ricin, botulinum toxin, anthrax, plague, cholera, and tularemia.[2][3] Some security analysts believe the program remains covertly active,[4][5] and involves dual-use technology.[6] The PRC ratified the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and Chinese officials have claimed that the country has never engaged in biological activities with offensive military applications. Members of the US intelligence community strongly suspect that the PRC has, as of 2015, at least 42 facilities that may be involved in research, development, production, or testing of biological agents.[7][4]
Most biological weapons experts believe that currently China can produce a wide range of biological threat agents and sophisticated delivery systems on very short notice.[3] Many life science researchers in Chinese academia and industry serve as People's Liberation Army (PLA) officers, and the latest 2020 revision of The Science of Military Strategy, a cornerstone doctrinal text for PLA officers, states that China anticipates that biotechnology, including biological weapons, will dominate the modern battlefield.[3]
Senior PLA officials have expressed a distinct interest in ethnic bioweapons, agents which can be targeted at a particular genetic makeup. In 2017, former president of PLA National Defense University (PLA NDU), General Zhang Shibo, suggested that “biotechnology is gradually showing strong signs characteristic of an offensive capability, including the possibility that specific ethnic genetic attacks could be employed."[3] In 2020, another professor at PLA NDU spoke of the "huge war effectiveness" of a "targeted attack that destroys a race, or a specific group of people."[8][9] Some believe this interest is borne partly of concern for the vulnerabilities inherent in the monoethnicity of China's population, which is 91 percent Han Chinese. Others believe the PLA's interest extends to offensive capabilities.[8]
![[icon]](viewer.php?source=wikipedia&q=File%3AWiki%20letter%20w%20cropped.svg&result=0#selected-result){kind=small} | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding missing information. (November 2025) |
In 1952, the People's Republic of China succeeded to the Republic of China's ratification of the Geneva Protocol, which is interpreted as a ban on the use of chemical and biological weapons.[10]
During the Cultural Revolution, citizens wrote letters to the Zhongnanhai residence of government leaders, warning of attacks on facilities that stored pathogenic bacteria, poisonous plant samples, toxicants, and other dangerous substances.[11]: 218–220
On 15 November 1984, twelve years after the treaty opened for signature, the People's Republic of China ratified the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). In an addendum, it noted the BWC's lack of explicit prohibition on use, or effective inspections and sanctions, and pushed for an equivalent chemical weapons convention.[12] A 1996 review conference affirmed that the BWC is interpreted to have a prohibition on use.[13]
Ken Alibek, former director of Biopreparat, the Soviet Union's largest biological warfare program, said that China suffered a serious accident at one of its biological weapons plants in the late 1980s. Alibek claimed that Soviet reconnaissance satellites had identified a biological weapons laboratory and plant near a site for testing nuclear warheads in western China. The Soviets suspected that two separate epidemics of hemorrhagic fever that swept the region in the late 1980s were caused by an accident in a lab where Chinese scientists were weaponizing viral diseases.[14]
Proliferation scholars point to the 1993 Yinhe incident as a formative event for counterproliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the context of China–United States relations.[15][16][17]
In the 1990s, U.S. officials, such as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, expressed concerns over possible Chinese biological weapon transfers to Iran and other nations.[18][19] Albright stated that she had received reports regarding transfers of dual-use items from Chinese entities to the Iranian government which concerned her and that the United States had to encourage China to adopt comprehensive export controls to prevent assistance to Iran's alleged biological weapons program. The United States acted upon the allegations on January 16, 2002, when it imposed sanctions on three Chinese firms accused of supplying Iran with materials used in the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons. In response to this, China issued export control protocols on dual use biological technology in late 2002.[19]
A large-scale Chinese state-run biological weapons program was reported to exist as recently as 2015, based on analysis from former IDF military intelligence officer Dany Shoham, integrating the findings of several different countries' defense agencies. The program reportedly includes at least 42 facilities that are involved in research, development, production, or testing of biological weapons (30 associated with the People's Liberation Army and 12 associated with the Chinese defense ministry).[7][20] US intelligence agencies assumed as early as 1993 that the PRC has maintained an operational, secretive, and sizable bioweapons arsenal that is "extremely hidden" but continuously upgraded.[7][4]
The official position of the United States Department of State, as published in a 2021 report, is that China likely operated an offensive bioweapons program before the 1984 signing of the BWC treaty, and continued to operate the program afterwards. The report also expresses concern that China may have transferred controlled biological weapons-related items to nations of international concern (e.g. Iran, similar to the Yinhe incident).[21][22][6]
In 2017, a textbook published by the People's Liberation Army National Defence University called the Science of Military Strategy debuted the potential for biological warfare to include "specific ethnic genetic attacks."[23] The same year, former People's Liberation Army general Zhang Shibo authored a book that concluded that "modern biotechnology development is gradually showing strong signs characteristic of an offensive capability," including "specific ethnic genetic attacks" (特定种族基因攻击).[23] In 2020, a professor at the same PLA university spoke of the "huge war effectiveness" of a "targeted attack that destroys a race, or a specific group of people."[8][9] A 2021 study by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies stated that the Chinese government's interest in biological weapons is driven by a recognition of its own vulnerability to genetic targeting due to a broadly homogenous population with more than 90 percent being ethnic Han Chinese.[8]
According to the 2023 China Military Power Report issued by the US Department of Defense: "the PRC continues to engage in biological activities with dual-use applications, which raise concerns regarding its compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). This includes studies at PRC military medical institutions on potent toxins with dual-use applications. The PRC likely possesses capabilities relevant to chemical and biological warfare that pose a threat to U.S., Allied, and partner forces, military operations, and civilian populations."[24]
In April 2024, a United States Department of State report stated that the PLA has conducted research into dual-use marine toxins that call into question China's BWC compliance.[6] In April 2025, an update report stated that China has incorporated artificial intelligence into its bio-weapons programs.[25][26]
In 2025, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested a Chinese scientist, Yunqing Jian, for smuggling Fusarium graminearum from the PRC into the U.S.[27][28][29] Jian pled guilty to smuggling biological materials and served five months in prison.[30]
A 2021 U.S. study by American weapons experts concluded that Beijing's interest in genetic weapons is driven partly by a perception that China would especially vulnerable if its adversaries develop the technology first. Compared with other countries — and especially the United States — China's population is broadly homogenous, with more than 90 percent of its people being ethnic Han Chinese.
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
The People's Republic of China (PRC) was reported to have operated a biological weapons program during the Cold War. The United States Department of State stated that two facilities in Beijing and Lingbao City, from the 1950s to 1987, weaponized large quantities of ricin, botulinum toxin, anthrax, plague, cholera, and tularemia. Some security analysts believe the program remains covertly active, and involves dual-use technology. The PRC ratified the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and Chinese officials have claimed that the country has never engaged in biological activities with offensive military applications. Members of the US intelligence community strongly suspect that the PRC has, as of 2015, at least 42 facilities that may be involved in research, development, production, or testing of biological agents. Most biological weapons experts believe that currently China can produce a wide range of biological threat agents and sophisticated delivery systems on very short notice. Many life science researchers in Chinese academia and industry serve as People's Liberation Army (PLA) officers, and the latest 2020 revision of The Science of Military Strategy, a cornerstone doctrinal text for PLA officers, states that China anticipates that biotechnology, including biological weapons, will dominate the modern battlefield. Senior PLA officials have expressed a distinct interest in ethnic bioweapons, agents which can be targeted at a particular genetic makeup. In 2017, former president of PLA National Defense University (PLA NDU), General Zhang Shibo, suggested that “biotechnology is gradually showing strong signs characteristic of an offensive capability, including the possibility that specific ethnic genetic attacks could be employed." In 2020, another professor at PLA NDU spoke of the "huge war effectiveness" of a "targeted attack that destroys a race, or a specific group of people." Some believe this interest is borne partly of concern for the vulnerabilities inherent in the monoethnicity of China's population, which is 91 percent Han Chinese. Others believe the PLA's interest extends to offensive capabilities.
China's stockpile of nuclear weapons is the world's third-largest, estimated at 620 nuclear warheads as of 2026. China was the fifth country to develop nuclear weapons, conducting its first test in 1964 and its first thermonuclear test in 1966. One of the five nuclear-weapon states recognized by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), China conducted 45 nuclear tests before signing the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996. China is significantly expanding its arsenal, projected to reach 1,000 warheads by 2030 and up to 1,500 by 2035. Compared to the arsenals of the United States and Russia, China's warheads are believed to have a similar technological level, with a much smaller proportion deployed on delivery systems, and the remainder stored separately. Since 2020, the People's Liberation Army has operated a nuclear triad. An estimated 509 warheads are assigned to Dongfeng ballistic missiles, 72 to JL-3 missiles on Type 094 submarines, and 20 to Xi'an H-6 strategic bombers. China is upgrading its triad with the development of the Xi'an H-20 stealth bomber, Type 096 submarine, hypersonic glide vehicles, and larger missile silo fields. Its early warning systems include at least three satellites, and four large phased array radars. China's anti-ballistic missiles include HQ-29, HQ-19, and S-400 systems. Since 1964, China has declared a no-first-use policy and called for an international no-first-use treaty. It has not fielded tactical nuclear weapons. Prior to the 21st century, China held to a minimal deterrence policy focused on countervalue targets. Officially, China's nuclear command and control requires the Politburo and Central Military Commission to jointly authorize the alerting and use of nuclear weapons. In the 2020s, some of China's nuclear forces are believed to have adopted a launch on warning posture. China consistently rejects official bilateral arms control talks with the US, on the grounds of its much smaller stockpile. In the early Cold War's Korean War and Taiwan Strait Crises, China confronted US nuclear threats, which were partially deterred by the Soviet nuclear arsenal. The Soviet Union transferred nuclear and missile technology from 1955 until the early Sino-Soviet split in 1960. The Rocket Force has operated most Chinese nuclear delivery systems since its 1966 founding as the Second Artillery Corps. Following the Sino-Soviet border conflict, China viewed the Soviet Armed Forces as its greatest threat, until a détente in 1989. China's nuclear weapons planning refocused on the US in the early 2000s, with relations strained by the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis and US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. China's civilian and military nuclear industries are operated by China National Nuclear Corporation, formerly the Second Ministry of Machine Building. All documented nuclear tests, 23 atmospheric and 22 underground, were conducted at Lop Nur Nuclear Test Base in Xinjiang. China is believed to have halted weapons-grade nuclear material production in 1990. China substantially aided Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, and influenced the programs of India and Taiwan. Like other CTBT adherents, China is believed to use supercomputers and inertial confinement fusion in a program analogous to stockpile stewardship. China is also reported to have operated chemical and biological weapons programs during the Cold War and possibly beyond.
Unit 731 (Japanese: 731部隊, Hepburn: Nana-san-ichi Butai), officially known as the Manchu Detachment 731 and also referred to as the Kamo Detachment and the Ishii Unit, was a clandestine biological and chemical warfare research facility, operated by the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) between 1933 and 1945. It was located in the Pingfang district of Harbin, in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (now part of Northeast China), and maintained multiple branches across mainland China and Southeast Asia under "Epidemic Prevention Department" umbrella. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the unit led the largest attacks in the history of biological warfare, killing approximately 200,000 people in cities and villages, through deliberate contamination of water supplies, food, and agricultural land. The facility was led by Surgeon General Shirō Ishii and received strong support from the Japanese military. An estimated 14,000 people were killed by human experimentation in the facility itself. Its activities included infecting prisoners with deadly diseases, conducting vivisection, performing organ harvesting, testing hypobaric chambers, amputating limbs, and exposing victims to chemical agents and explosives. Prisoners—often referred to as "logs" (or "maruta") by the staff—were mainly Chinese civilians, but also included Russians, Koreans, and others, including children and pregnant women. No documented survivors are currently known. After the war, twelve Unit 731 members were tried by the USSR in the 1949 Khabarovsk war crimes trials and sentenced to prison. However, many key figures, including Ishii, were granted immunity in a coverup by the United States in exchange for their research data. The Truman administration concealed the unit's crimes and paid stipends to former personnel. The obtained information was not of significant value, as the US biological weapons program had surpassed the capabilities of Unit 731. The USSR handed out relatively lenient sentences at the Khabarovsk war crimes trials. On 28 August 2002, the Tokyo District Court acknowledged that Japan had conducted biological warfare in China and held the state responsible for related deaths, but rejected compensation, arguing this was provided by postwar treaties such as the Treaty of San Francisco. In April 2018, the National Archives of Japan released a near-complete list of 3,607 personnel affiliated with Unit 731. The Japanese government has never issued an official acknowledgement of its biological warfare.
The Soviet Union covertly operated the world's largest and most sophisticated known biological weapons program. The Soviet program began in the 1920s and lasted until at least September 1992 but has possibly been continued by the Russian Federation after that. Under a civilian cover organization named Biopreparat, 40 to 50 military-purposed biological research facilities existed throughout the Soviet Union. An anti-agriculture program, Ekologiya, also targeted crops and livestock. Soviet military doctrine use-cases for biological weapons included strategic, operational, and anti-agriculture. Strategic agents targeted cities with lethal and contagious human pathogens. The causative agents of plague, smallpox, and Q fever were weaponized and stockpiled. Strategic attacks were estimated to kill half the population of a city of millions such as New York City, and complemented Soviet strategic nuclear weapons. It remains unclear if the program operationalized delivery vehicles such as ballistic or cruise missiles. Operational agents were more incapacitating, for targeting military reinforcements and services in the rear of the battlefield. The pathogens for glanders, tularemia, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, and brucellosis may have been considered for air-delivery by cluster munitions or spray tank. Toxins including botulinum, and enterotoxin type B, which cause botulism and food poisoning respectively, were also investigated as operational weapons until the mid-1970s. For serving in both strategic and operational roles, the causative agents of anthrax and Marburg virus disease were also stockpiled. Ekologiya studied anti-livestock pathogens such as for rinderpest and anthrax, and anti-crop such as rice blast and stem rust. These programs became immense and were conducted at dozens of secret sites employing up to 65,000 people. Annualized production capacity for weaponized smallpox, for example, was 90 to 100 tons. In the 1980s and 1990s, many of these agents were genetically altered to resist heat, cold, and antibiotics. In the 1990s, Boris Yeltsin admitted to an offensive biological weapons program as well as to the true nature of the Sverdlovsk anthrax leak of 1979, which had resulted in the deaths of at least 64 people. Defecting Soviet bioweaponeers such as Vladimir Pasechnik and Colonel Ken Alibek confirmed that the program had been massive and still existed. In 1992, a Trilateral Agreement was signed with the United States and the United Kingdom promising to end biological weapons programs and convert facilities to benevolent purposes, but compliance with the agreement—and the fate of the former Soviet bio-agents and facilities—is still mostly undocumented.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Joe Louis.