This Issue
China
China Urges Broadening ABM Treaty
A 13 January Financial Times report stated that the 12 January suggestion by Sha Zukang of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty between the US and Russia be broadened into a multilateral accord was an important policy shift for China. It was the first time Beijing had publicly requested the internationalisation of the treaty, reflecting increasing fears that it would be left out of new missile defence systems being developed by America and its allies, including Japan. Sha warned that developing missile defence systems would encourage other states to develop more advanced offensive missiles prompting a new round of the arms race.
The report recalled that the ABM was first negotiated in 1972, but was recently renegotiated with Russia to include more effective missile defences. Bates Gill from the Brookings Institution asserted that Beijing had criticised renegotiation of the ABM treaty for the previous four to five years.
The FT report said that the Clinton Administration has proposed reviving research into a national missile defence system, with a $7bn budgetary request over the following six years, and has increased its theatre missile defence programmes with its allies.
National Security Adviser Sandy Berger asserted that Washington would seek agreement with other treaty parties if its missile defence actions required modification of the ABM treaty. However, former Vice-President Dan Quayle announced that an effective missile defence system required declaring the ABM treaty obsolete and urged withdrawal from it.
Berger asserted that the Clinton Administration would seek US ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) - signed by 151 states - in 1999, although he warned that obtaining Senate consent for this would be difficult. He added that failure to ratify would undermine American initiatives to persuade India and Pakistan, which tested nuclear devices for the first time in 1998, to stick to their promises to adhere to the treaty by September 1999. Berger added that Washington intended to confront risks of weapons of mass destruction by addressing regional threats, including those presented by Iraq and North Korea, as well as by reinforcing the defences of potential targets. Berger announced that the five established nuclear powers - China, France, Russia, the UK and the US - had agreed a voluntary moratorium on plutonium production.
Berger announced US penalties - including a ban on imports from and exports to - against three Russian scientific institutes which had supplied sensitive missile and nuclear technology to Iran: the Scientific Research and Design Institute of Power Technology (NIKIET), the D. Mendeleyev University of Chemical Technology and the Moscow Aviation Institute. In July 1998, Washington took action against seven others and made cooperation over space launches contingent upon Russia halting cooperation with Tehran's ballistic missile programme.
Financial Times: 13 January 1999
Beijing Opposes Missile Shield
An 8 March Washington Post report stated that, on 7 March, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan complained that American proposals to include parts of Asia, including Taiwan, under a US antimissile umbrella would impede Chinese ambitions of peaceful reunification with Taiwan. The announcement formed part of a campaign to inform the Clinton administration that China would not tolerate deployment of theatre-missile defence (TMD) in East Asia, particularly Taiwan.
Tang asserted that TMD would have a negative impact on the global and regional strategic balance and stability and would compromise Japan's constitutional requirement to exclusively defensive military capabilities. The WP report stated that Beijing was afraid that some US weapons-system proposals incorporated missiles capable of destroying missile batteries in other countries. Thus, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's recent trip to Beijing failed in its intention to clarify Chinese suspicions while the gap between Chinese and American interests in East Asia was widening, particularly Chinese opposition to US military deployments on China's periphery and US alliances with Australia, Japan and South Korea.
Albright had urged a greater Chinese commitment to nuclear non-proliferation. The WP report interpreted this as a reference to North Korea, which Washington worried was still attempting to construct a nuclear weapon.
Tang described fears of a threat from North Korea as greatly exaggerated. He denied a 6 March New York Times report claiming that Beijing stole technology from the US Energy Department's weapons lab in Los Alamos to create nuclear warheads small enough to be launched at multiple targets from a single missile.
Washington Post: 8 March 1999
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