China has
been widely reviled as the world's arch-proliferator,
opening a Pandora's Box of weapons of mass destruction,
and helping Pakistan, Iran and Algeria. The truth, as
usual, is more complex, with valid arguments on both
sides. China's record is mixed and at times decidedly
unsavory, but its recent moves and noises are positive,
and those who point fingers at Beijing have records that
are far from spotless.
So, is China a
proliferator or a nonproliferator, a one-time
proliferator who has seen the light and now is a
nonproliferator, or still something of both? Those are
some of the questions asked as China, in this post-Cold
War age of existential angst is hardly the only country
often cited in regard to proliferation of "weapons of
mass destruction". But it is the world's largest and a
favorite whipping boy for military planners and
political ideologues.
So, what is China's
record? Any honest appraisal has to acknowledge that
China has come a long way towards nonproliferation,
certainly in word, and to a significant extent in deed.
By the definition of the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, following its first nuclear
test in 1964, China is one of the five de jure
nuclear-weapon states because it declared and tested a
nuclear weapon before 1967.
During its early
years as a nuclear weapons state, China's rhetoric
favored nuclear weapons proliferation, particularly in
the Third World, as a rallying point for
anti-imperialism. Through the 1970s, China's policy was
not to oppose nuclear proliferation, which it still saw
as limiting United States and Soviet power. But after
China began to open up to the West in the 1970s, its
rhetorical position gradually shifted to one opposing
nuclear proliferation, explicitly so after 1983.
But China's years of isolation and disengagement
from the rest of the world were costly, in terms of
demonstrating its nonproliferation credentials. In
particular its nuclear practices did not conform to
international non-proliferation regime standards, and
major efforts over 20 years were required to persuade
China to bring its nuclear trade practices into
alignment with the policies of the other nuclear
supplier states.
Do as I say, not as I
do But it has been an uphill slog for China,
since it has had to cope with a "do as I say, not as I
do" situation. For example, consider that China joined
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1984,
but it did not join the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
(NPT) until 1992. During this period, the
non-proliferation regime, at US urging, was itself
raising the bar with stiffer export control
requirements, making the standards applied to China
today higher and stricter than those most Western states
themselves lived by during the Cold War. Ironically,
nowadays those higher standards are considered
indispensable for nonproliferation regime effectiveness
and Western states continue to pressure China to comply
with them.
Bear in mind that after joining IAEA,
China has declared that it conducts its nuclear trade
according to the following three principles:
All exports should be used exclusively for peaceful
purposes;
All exports should be subject to IAEA safeguards;
No exports should re-transferred to a third country
without prior Chinese approval.
Most recently,
on May 31, China was accepted into the Nuclear Suppliers
Group (NSG) at a meeting in Sweden. The NSG is made up
of 40 nuclear-capable nations that work with each other
to control the trade of nuclear materials and technology
for business purposes.
According to the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC, in
the past, "China posed challenges to the international
non-proliferation regime because of the role of Chinese
companies in supplying a wide range of materials,
equipment and technologies that could contribute to NBC
[nuclear, biological and chemical] weapons and missile
programs in countries of proliferation concern.
Specifically, China disregarded international norms
during the 1980s by selling nuclear materials to
countries such as South Africa, India, Pakistan, and
Argentina, without requiring that the items be placed
under IAEA safeguards."
While China's record has
been improving during the 1990s, especially since it
acceded to the NPT in 1992, questions still are raised
about its role in weapons proliferation. Since taking
office, the administration of President George W Bush
has imposed sanctions at least eight times on entities
of the People's Republic of China, but not on the
government itself, for transfers relating to ballistic
missiles, chemical weapons, and cruise missiles to
Pakistan and Iran.
China gave nuclear aid to
Pakistan for 15 years In regard to nuclear
proliferation, the most serious charges center on the
following: Chinese assistance to Pakistan over the past
15 years is considered crucial to Pakistan's development
of nuclear weapons. According to the Carnegie Endowment,
in the early 1980s China was believed to have supplied
Pakistan with the plans for one of its earliest bombs
and possibly to have provided enough highly enriched
uranium for two such weapons.
China also
assisted Pakistan's civilian nuclear program by helping
to build a 300-megawatt (MW) power reactor, thus
enabling Islamabad to circumvent a nuclear trade
embargo.
Back in 1996 some in the US Congress
called for sanctions against Beijing after reports that
China sold non-safeguarded ring magnets to Pakistan,
apparently in violation of both the NPT and various US
laws. Specifically, a Chinese state-owned company
transferred to the Abdul Qadeer Khan Laboratory in
Pakistan 5,000 ring magnets that can be used in gas
centrifuges to enrich uranium. Khan is considered the
father of Pakistan's nuclear program and admitted to
selling nuclear technology to other countries.
What tends to be overlooked in discussions of
Chinese assistance to Pakistan is its motivation.
Chinese transfers derive largely from Chinese concerns
about the regional balance of power: specifically
China's effort to pursue a containment policy in regard
to India.
Also, back in 1995, at US urging,
China suspended a sale of nuclear reactors to Iran.
China also built an electromagnetic isotope separation
system for enriching uranium at the Kkarja nuclear
facility.
Before that China had provided Iran
with three zero-power research reactors and one very
small, 30-kilowatt reactor.
China gave
nuclear aid to Iran - with safeguards China did
continue until 1997 to assist Iran in constructing a
plant near Esfahan to produce uranium hexafluoride, the
material fed into gas centrifuges for enrichment.
Chinese technicians also assisted Iran with uranium
mining and processing and fuel fabrication. Yet these
activities were carried out in accordance with NPT and
IAEA safeguards.
China has also pursued a
continuing nuclear export relationship with Algeria,
dating back to 1983 when it was involved in the secret
construction of the Es Salem 15-MW research reactor at
Ain Oussera. Shortly after the reactor was discovered
and publicized in April 1991, Algeria agreed to place it
under IAEA safeguards, and a safeguard agreement for
this purpose was signed in February 1992. Thus the
reactor has been subject to IAEA inspections since its
inauguration in December 1993. Although Algeria later
acceded to the NPT, its interest in plutonium
reprocessing and the possibility that China may have
helped Algeria with this activity have kept Algeria on
the watch-list.
China has signed agreements with
Algeria covering nuclear cooperation between the two
countries. China is apparently helping to construct the
Algerian Center of Nuclear Energy Research, which will
be placed under IAEA safeguards.
Earlier this
year, Chinese nuclear weapons designs were reportedly
discovered at Libyan facilities, probably the result of
Pakistani proliferation according to the Washington,
DC-based Nuclear Threat Initiative.
Still
overall, while there are still frictions, when it comes
to nuclear nonproliferation, China and the United States
are increasingly finding areas of convergence, moving
from Washington's condemnation of China and India's
nuclear weapons tests in 1998 to cooperation in defusing
the North Korean nuclear weapons program.
Tomorrow: All the right noises
David Isenberg, a senior analyst with
the Washington-based British American Security
Information Council (BASIC), has a wide background in
arms control and national security issues. The views
expressed are his own.
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Part 1: The
'arch-proliferator'
