The World - News from March 24, 1988

Taiwan, under pressure from U.S. officials, has stopped construction on a secret plant that could have produced plutonium, a key component of nuclear weapons, from spent reactor fuel, the New York Times reported. Building such a plant would have broken Taiwan commitments to the United States, it said. Taiwan also shut down its largest civilian nuclear reactor. Washington learned of the project, the newspaper said, from Col. Chang Hsien-yi, a top-level informant, who has been missing from Taiwan since January. Taiwan has repeatedly denied plans to produce nuclear weapons.