NEW YORK - The People's Republic of China,
a veto-wielding permanent member of the United
Nations Security Council and one of the world's
prolific arms producers, remains a major stumbling
block to US efforts to impose economic and
military sanctions on three countries: Sudan,
Myanmar and Iran.
"The reasons are
obvious," said a Southeast Asian diplomat who
closely monitors the politics in the region. "Just
as the United States and other Western powers
protect their own political and military interests
worldwide, so does China."
With the threat
of its veto, China has expressed strong
reservations over recent Western attempts either
to penalize or
impose
sanctions against Sudan, Myanmar and Iran for
various political reasons. Nor has the 15-member
Security Council been unable to take any action
against any of the three countries because of
opposition from China or Russia - or both.
And according to a new report released by
London-based Amnesty International, China is a key
arms supplier to countries such as Sudan, Myanmar
and Nepal, all three described by AI as
human-rights violators.
Iran is also a
longtime recipient of Chinese weapons, including
Shenyang fighter planes, T-59 battle tanks, HY-2
Silkworm surface-to-surface missiles, and rocket
launchers. China has strong economic interests in
both Sudan and Iran, which, in turn, are oil
suppliers to China.
"China's arms exports,
estimated to be in excess of [US]$1 billion a
year, often involve the exchange of weapons for
raw materials to fuel the country's rapid economic
growth," says the AI study.
But it is a
trade shrouded in secrecy, the study points out,
because Beijing does not publish any information
about arms transfers abroad and hasn't submitted
any data to the UN's annual Register on
Conventional Arms in the past eight years.
"As a major arms exporter and a permanent
member of the UN Security Council, China should
live up to its obligations under international
law," said Helen Hughes, AI's arms-control
researcher.
"China is the only major
arms-exporting power that has not signed any
multilateral agreements with criteria to prevent
arms exports likely to be used for serious
human-rights violations," she said in a statement
released in New York.
Frida Berrigan,
senior research associate at the New York-based
World Policy Institute's Arms Trade Resource
Center, said China seems to be the largest and
most flagrant violator of international norms on
arms transfers, but it is not a problem one
country can hope to solve on its own.
"In
this globalized world where China's military
trucks are powered by US engines, and US fighter
planes might have components made in Israel or
South Korea, arms transfers to countries in
conflict or with records of egregious human-rights
abuses cannot be blamed on one country alone,"
Berrigan said.
The only real solution, she
pointed out, is to manufacture fewer arms and sell
them to fewer nations. "Unfortunately, all signs
point toward the trend going in the opposite
direction - toward greater arms proliferation, and
more sophisticated tools for waging war and
repressing rights," Berrigan said.
According to the Amnesty study, more than
200 Chinese military trucks - normally running on
US Cummins diesel engines - were shipped to Sudan
last August, despite a US arms embargo on both
countries and the involvement of similar vehicles
in the killing and abduction of civilians in
politically troubled Darfur.
The study,
titled "China: Sustaining Conflict and Human
Rights Abuses", also cites regular Chinese
military shipments to Myanmar, including the
supply last August of 400 military trucks to
Myanmar's army despite its involvement in the
torture, killing and forced eviction of hundreds
of thousands of civilians.
Chinese
military exports to Nepal in 2005 and early 2006,
including a deal to supply nearly 25,000
Chinese-made rifles and 18,000 grenades to
Nepalese security forces, were also badly timed,
according to the report, because they was
delivered at a time when "Nepal was involved in
the brutal repression of thousands of civilian
demonstrators".
China is also complicit in
an increasing illicit trade in Chinese-made
Norinco pistols in Australia, Malaysia, Thailand
and particularly South Africa, where they are
commonly used for robbery, rape and other crimes.
The report also indicates how Chinese
weapons have helped sustain brutal conflicts,
criminal violence and grave human-rights
violations in countries such as Sudan, Nepal,
Myanmar and South Africa. But it also reveals the
possible involvement of Western companies in the
manufacture of some of these weapons.
"China describes its approach to
arms-export licensing as 'cautious and
responsible', yet the reality couldn't be further
from the truth," said Hughes. "They must introduce
effective laws and regulations banning all arms
transfers that could be used for serious
human-rights violations or breaches in
international humanitarian law."
Hughes
said AI is also calling on China to report
annually and publicly on all arms-export licenses
and deliveries and to support a tough,
comprehensive and enforceable international
arms-trade treaty.
Ann-Louise Colgan,
director for policy analysis and communications at
Washington-based Africa Action, said that both
Russia and China continue to oppose sanctions for
their own economic and political interests.
"China is the single largest investor in
the oil industry in Sudan, and Russia also has
interests in continuing to sell weapons and other
military equipment to the Khartoum regime," she
said.
Neither China nor Russia wishes to
antagonize the government of Sudan, and neither
one wishes to set a precedent for international
intervention (or even punitive action) based on
human-rights concerns because of their own
internal repression of ethnic communities, Colgan
said.
