BEIJING, 19 February 2004 — China’s murky role as an arms salesman has entered US crosshairs, but defense analysts say Beijing’s shift toward a more responsible policy on the spread of weapons of mass destruction will limit any damage.
This week, reports emerged in Washington implicating Beijing in Libyan and Pakistani nuclear bomb programs as well as a Saudi missile program. Saudi Arabia has dismissed as “fabricated” an agency report about Sino-Saudi collaboration in a missile program.
But Beijing’s response has been notably muted, highlighting a slow but significant shift to be seen as a responsible and leading member of the international community, matching its burgeoning economic might.
“China’s attitude toward proliferation in the last 15 years has changed remarkably,” said Evan Medeiros, a RAND Corporation expert on China’s arms industry and military.
“Without a doubt, their views have evolved, and evolved in the direction of international practices.”
At the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, a spokeswoman said a Washington Post report that atomic bomb designs found in Libya originated in China was a source of concern and Beijing was investigating.
She also simply declined to comment on a Reuters report that US officials think China is still helping Pakistan with nuclear weapons and missile development and Saudi Arabia with missiles.
Not long ago, China watchers said they would have expected a bristly denial of any notion of Chinese involvement.
China has joined a number of nonproliferation regimes in the past decade. In the past two years alone, it has churned out several sets of new export control rules to check the sales of products that can be used in chemical weapons and materials that can be used in ballistic missiles.
The main reason for the shift is a desire to improve China’s global standing as its economy integrates more closely with the rest of the world’s.
“They are taking a much more active stance in nonproliferation efforts. Part of it is that they want to become a much bigger player on the international stage,” said a Europe-based expert on Chinese military policy. “It is in their interests to beef up their nonproliferation credentials.”
Still, the fresh allegations did not surprise experts who have long believed China helped Pakistan to become a nuclear power and may even have given Islamabad detailed weapons designs.
The Post’s report said the Chinese weapons plans were old and had arrived in Libya via Pakistan.
China has tried to strengthen its nonproliferation regime, in what Medeiros described as “a gradual, grudging, continued converging between China and the United States”.
But constraints remain.
One key factor is Beijing’s limited ability to track what Chinese companies are exporting.
