No Deal Reached on Chinese Missile Proliferation
During a February 21-22 state visit to China, President George
W. Bush failed to resolve concerns about Beijing’s implementation
of a deal to curb Chinese missile proliferation, despite a recent
report that agreement could be within reach.
The Bush administration contends that China has repeatedly violated
a November 2000 agreement in which Beijing committed not to help
states develop “in any way…ballistic missiles that can
be used to deliver nuclear weapons” and to enact a comprehensive
missile and missile-technology export control system. (See
ACT, December 2000.)
As recently as January, the CIA accused China of breaching its
commitments under the deal, noting that during the first half of
2001, China provided Pakistan with “missile-related technical
assistance” and that Chinese firms transferred “dual-use
missile-related items, raw materials, and/or assistance” to
Iran, North Korea, and Libya.
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said that the United
States wants China to design and implement a national export control
law that was required by the November 2000 agreement. Beijing has
yet to do so and, according to a February 27 New York Times
report, insists that the United States first meet a promise it made
under the deal to resume processing applications for U.S. companies
to launch their satellites on Chinese rockets, a process that has
been suspended since February 2000. This would require Washington
to waive sanctions that bar the United States from exporting satellites
to China for launch. Beijing also wants Washington to lift sanctions levied
on a Chinese firm in September 2001 for missile proliferation. (See
ACT, September 2001.)
Rice also said that Washington wants China to cease implementing
missile-related contracts signed prior to the November 2000 deal,
but China appears unwilling to meet that demand. “The agreement
is for the future, not the past,” according to an unnamed Chinese
Foreign Ministry official quoted in a February 26 Associated Press
report.
A New York Times report appearing the day of Bush’s
first meeting with Chinese President Jiang Zemin cited a senior
White House official as “hopeful” that Beijing would meet
Washington’s demands in exchange for waiving the satellite-export
sanctions. However, after a meeting between Bush and Jiang on February
21, Rice said, “There is no agreement, but…work is underway.”
Three rounds of working-level talks have been held to date, most
recently in late November. (See
ACT, January/February 2002.)
Clark Randt, the U.S. ambassador to China, highlighted the importance
Washington places on Chinese missile proliferation in a January
21 speech in Hong Kong to the Asia Society. “I should be crystal
clear on this point, that nonproliferation is a make-or-break issue
for us,” Randt said. He added that, given the events of September
11, the “stakes are much higher than ever before [and]…the
type of activities that possibly had been going on can no longer
be tolerated.”
Both sides are prepared to resume discussions when China’s
chief arms control negotiator, Liu Jieyi, is in Washington March
4-5 to attend a conference of high-level U.S. and Chinese arms control
officials and scholars.
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