For months, Senate investigators have searched for quid pro quos -- major policy changes favorable to China that came as a result of illegal campaign contributions. As it happens, one major policy change is about to take effect.

The United States is on the verge of allowing the sale of sensitive nuclear technology to China, a development far more beneficial to China than anything yet mentioned in the political-corruption hearings. The prospect of U.S. firms giving China anything nuclear, however, has nonproliferation experts and a good many members of Congress apoplectic. "China's continued recklessness in assisting countries like Iran, Pakistan, and Algeria makes it the Kmart for weapons of mass destruction," says Rep. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, who vows to try to block the transfer.

Whether Markey succeeds or not, the proposed nuclear transfers to China will not be investigated by the Senate committee for a simple reason: The change happened at the behest not of Chinese spies but of large American corporations.

Faced with a declining American demand, U.S. nuclear power manufacturers have been begging for approval to help build 20 Chinese atomic power stations -- a task worth as much as $40 billion. But a 1985 federal law prohibits them from selling the Chinese nuclear technology until the president "certifies" that China has stopped selling weapons technology to other nations, such as Pakistan and Iran, as it has in the past. Government and industry sources say.

President Clinton plans to depart from the policy of past presidents and give China this certification, most likely during the U.S.-China summit set for October.

The change comes after a year of intense lobbying from American companies. Westinghouse, General Electric, Bechtel, ABB Combustion Engineering Inc., and others have pressed the White House, Commerce and Energy departments, and members of Congress to approve the exports. For them, a China deal may be a lifesaver. "If we don't have an industry in China, I don't think the [American] industry can survive," says Howard Pierce, an executive vice president at ABB. "The numbers are huge. The Chinese still represent anywhere from 50 to 75 percent of the world's new nuclear equipment market."

In the Clinton administration, the nuclear industry has found an eager partner. Since first taking office, White House officials have argued that legitimate trade was being blocked by unreasonable cold-war-era fears over the export of "dual-use technology" -- products that can be put to either commercial or military use. To that end, the administration dramatically revised trade rules, beginning with its 1993 decision to ease limits on the export of high-speed and "super" computers. That change came after pressure from electronics and computer-industry CEOs, several of whom publicly supported Clinton in 1992.

They had complained that high-speed computers already were being sold overseas by other countries. Soon, other dual-use restrictions were also lifted.

The result has been a lucrative trade with China, much of it in high-tech goods whose export was unthinkable just a few years ago. In 1996, for instance, the Commerce Department approved the shipment of more than 100 specialized oscilloscopes -- instruments that can test advanced electronic circuits but can also diagnose nuclear test results -- worth $5.8 million. In 1995, U.S. companies shipped China almost $1 billion in dual-use "digital computers, assemblies, and related equipment," according to a Commerce Department report. A brisk exchange in rocket, satellite, and avionics technology has opened up for U.S. companies like Hughes and Rockwell. Other exports now include computer-controlled machine tools, laser technology, underwater acoustic equipment, computer-chip manufacturing machines, and code-encryption components. Since 1992, dual-use exports to China have grown to $7 billion.

Engagement

The administration sees little danger in this. China -- already a nuclear state -- is adopting its own export controls, officials say. "We think the way to deal with China is through engagement, engaging them in better nonproliferation practices," says William Reinsch, the Commerce Department's under secretary for export administration. China, though, has a history of misrepresenting the use of U.S. technology it buys. For instance, a Sun Microsystems supercomputer wound up, illegally, in a Chinese military facility. (China recently agreed to return the computer.) Similarly, machine tools sold by McDonnell Douglas to the Chinese firm CATIC in 1994 ended up not at an airplane plant but at a facility that makes Silkworm cruise missiles.

China also has a record of reselling technology to other nations: It sold chemical-weapons precursors to Iran and missiles and ring magnets used to process uranium to Pakistan. Such trade led the CIA in June to conclude that China had become the "most significant supplier" of nuclear and chemical weapons technology to foreign countries.

Still, Republican senators waxing indignant about this may have a credibility problem. Last spring, when U.S. supercomputers ended up illegally in a Chinese military plant and in Russian nuclear facilities, the House of Representatives moved to tighten computer-export controls. But in the Senate, Republican leaders got urgent calls from IBM CEO Louis Gerstner, and strong letters from National Security Adviser Samuel Berger and Defense Secretary William Cohen. Soon thereafter, the attempt to limit computer exports was defeated.

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