Tracking Nuclear Proliferation: A Guide in Maps and Charts, 1998, by Rodney W. Jones, Mark G. McDonough, Toby Dalton, and Gregory Koblentz

 

Nuclear Weapons States: China

China, a nuclear-weapon state since 1964, opened itself to wider international exchange and trade in the late 1970s and began to export arms and military technology on a significant scale. It also became a supplier of sensitive nuclear technology. China’s exports posed major problems for the non-proliferation regime both because of their indiscriminate nature and because of China’s failure to apply the safeguards and controls exercised by states compliant with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). As a result, the United States and other countries began sustained efforts—through bilateral diplomatic and multilateral channels—to draw China into the international non-proliferation regime step by step. Over the more than two decades since China’s "opening," these efforts have achieved incremental but important progress, although they remain incomplete. The non-proliferation stakes were important factors in U.S. revival of its "engagement" posture with China after the chilly interlude that followed the Chinese crackdown on democracy in the Tiananmen Square crisis of 1989.

A major focus of U.S. nuclear non-proliferation engagement with China after it joined the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1984 was the U.S.–China agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation, signed in 1985 but held in abeyance through 1997 by congressional conditions that impose a certification requirement. Efforts by a series of U.S. administrations to meet the congressional conditions have encouraged China, in steps, to apply controls on its nuclear exports that are closer to the standards of the major nuclear supplier countries. A critical peak in these efforts was triggered in 1996 by the disclosure of Chinese sales of ring magnets to Pakistan for use in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels.

In September 1997, China finally announced new steps to clarify and tighten up its nuclear export controls. Just before and during the October 1997 summit in Washington, China provided further nuclear non-proliferation assurances, described later in this chapter. China thus satisfied the administration’s certification requirements and Congress reviewed certification in February 1998 without overturning it. The U.S.–China agreement for cooperation took effect on March 18,1998, paving the way for U.S. commercial sales to the civilian nuclear power program in China. Despite this progress, the effectiveness of China’s new export control commitments and practices must be watched and measured in particular situations over the next few years. Efforts to win Chinese compliance with the guidelines of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) also have moved forward incrementally, but China’s response is still incomplete. There is also some danger that the repercussions of India’s and Pakistan’s nuclear tests of May 1998 will retard China’s non-proliferation progress.

 

Background

Following its first nuclear test in 1964, China slowly developed a full-fledged nuclear weapons infrastructure and strategic and a tactical nuclear arsenal. By NPT definition, China is one of the five de jure nuclear-weapon states because it declared and tested a nuclear weapon before 1967. Long disconnected from normal international relations after the communist revolution in 1947, China was also isolated from the evolving international framework of peaceful uses of nuclear energy as well as from the collaboration that produced the IAEA in the 1950s, the NPT in the late 1960s, and the development of nuclear export control guidelines in the 1970s. As a communist power during the Cold War, China was also excluded from the establishment of the MTCR, which originated in 1987 as a Western arrangement to restrain exports of nuclear-capable missiles and related technology.

During the years of isolation from the West, China’s posture rhetorically 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 U.S. and Soviet power. After China began to open to the West in the 1970s, its rhetorical position gradually shifted to one opposing nuclear proliferation, explicitly so after 1983.

China’s nuclear and arms trade practices did not, however, conform to international non-proliferation regime standards, and major efforts over two decades were required to persuade China to bring its nuclear trade practices into closer alignment with the policies of the other nuclear supplier states. There is still a gap that needs to be closed. To understand how far China has come on the non-proliferation path, two points should be made clear: China joined the IAEA in 1984, but it did not join the NPT until 1992. During this period, the non-proliferation regime, under U.S. urging, was itself raising the bar with stiffer export control requirements, making the standards applied to China today higher than those most Western states themselves lived by during the Cold War. That said, the higher standards are now indispensable for regime effectiveness, and the efforts to win full Chinese compliance must continue.

China’s Challenges to the Non-Proliferation Regime

China has posed formidable challenges to the international non-proliferation regime. As a May 1996 Pentagon report points out, China has been a contributor to proliferation "primarily 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." 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. Although China joined the NPT in 1992, and pledged to the United States in the same year and again in 1994 that it would abide by the MTCR, it was slow to adopt and publish nuclear export control laws.

China has posed a further challenge through the lack of transparency in its domestic nuclear safeguards and security measures; presumably these exist in some form to protect its nuclear arsenal and stockpile of fissile material from unauthorized use or theft. These internal measures might be too weak, however, to withstand the political instability and social upheaval of a major crisis in the country. After the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown on the student-led democracy movement, for example, observers feared that the post–Deng Xiaoping succession struggle could give rise to internal political disorder or even to state disintegration.

Sensitive Nuclear Exports

China’s nuclear exports to two particular countries, Pakistan and Iran, have been the leading causes of concern. Even though Pakistan is not a party to the NPT, has had a nuclear weapons program since 1972, and is believed to have had a small arsenal ready to assemble for a number of years, China has been its principal supplier of nuclear equipment and services since the late 1970s. Similarly, although Iran is a member of the NPT and is believed to have started a nuclear weapons program in the mid-1980s, China has been one of its principal suppliers of nuclear equipment and services.

China’s assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear program over the last 15 years may have been crucial to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons breakthroughs in the 1980s. It is widely believed that in the early 1980s China supplied Pakistan with design information for one of its own earlier atomic weapons, and there has also been speculation that China may have provided Pakistan with enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for two such weapons. According to an August 1997 report by the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, "Prior to China’s [1992] accession [to the NPT], the United States concluded that China had assisted Pakistan in developing nuclear explosives. . . . Questions remain about contacts between Chinese entities and elements associated with Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program." China was also believed to have assisted Pakistan with building an unsafeguarded 50-70-MWt plutonium production reactor at Khushab and to have helped Pakistan develop an unsafeguarded plutonium reprocessing facility at Chasma that was left unfinished when earlier French assistance was terminated in the late 1970s. If these facilities were to come on line without safeguards, they would for the first time give Pakistan a source of plutonium for use in nuclear weapons.

China has also assisted Pakistan’s civilian nuclear program—circumventing the nuclear trade embargo on Pakistan observed by members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)—by helping build a 300-MWe power reactor at Chasma. This reactor will be placed under IAEA safeguards as a condition of supply under the existing China-Pakistan agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperation. However, since Pakistan has not accepted full-scope safeguards, co-located facilities such as the partially completed Chasma reprocessing plant may remain inaccessible to IAEA inspection.

According to the Pentagon, China also has been a "principal supplier of nuclear technology to Iran." It provided Iran three zero-power research reactors and one very small 30-KWt one, as well as two or three calutrons (electromagnetic isotope separation, or EMIS, machines). While calutrons in those numbers would not produce fissile uranium in significant quantity, they would serve to train personnel in a sensitive nuclear activity. China and Iran signed a ten-year nuclear cooperation agreement in 1990, and Iran in 1992 agreed to purchase two 300-MWe pressurized water reactors (PWRs) from China. In May 1995, Reza Amrollahi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said that Iran had already made a down payment on the $600-$800 million power reactor contract.

The United States has led an international effort to prevent the supply of nuclear technology to Iran and has placed pressure on China (and other suppliers) to cancel nuclear deals with Iran. With respect to China, by 1997 this U.S. pressure apparently had made a difference.

China has also pursued a continuing nuclear export relationship with Algeria. The first stage of this cooperation, under an agreement that dates back to 1983, involved the secret construction of the Es Salem 15-MWt 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 safeguards 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.

Missile Export Activities

In the missile export field, China reportedly has aided the missile programs of Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and possibly North Korea. In Pakistan’s case, China evidently transferred key components in the early 1990s for short-range, nuclear-capable M-11 surface-to-surface missiles. In June 1991, the United States imposed MTCR Category II sanctions against entities in Pakistan and China for missile technology transfers. These sanctions were lifted in March 1992 after the United States received written confirmation from China that it would abide by the MTCR "guidelines and parameters." Washington took this oral confirmation to mean China would not export either the M-9 or the M-11 missile.

Despite reports that China had transferred complete M-11s to Pakistan in late 1992 (which could trigger tougher Category I sanctions), the Clinton Administration again imposed the lighter Category II sanctions on Pakistan and China in August 1993 for the transfer of missile-related technology. These sanctions were lifted in October 1994 after China promised not to export any "ground-to-ground" missiles "inherently capable" of delivering a 500-kg payload to at least 300 km—encompassing the M-11—and to abide by the "guidelines and parameters" of the MTCR. After these sanctions were lifted, however, reports persisted of Chinese aid to Pakistan’s and Iran’s missile programs.

Drawing China into the Non-Proliferation Regime

Drawing China into the nuclear and missile non-proliferation regimes has been a long-term process—part of a larger agenda of normalizing relations with a major regional power that had an independent civilization lasting thousands of years, experienced a communist revolution, made war against U.N. forces in Korea, and thereafter remained isolated for decades from normal international relations with the West. Taking the lead diplomatically with China in the 1970s, the United States has pressed for common understandings with China of stability and regional security. Drawing China into the sphere of multilateral problem-solving in the United Nations and into nuclear arms control fora has been an important part of a larger engagement process. To understand how U.S. sanctions laws and policies, as well as positive inducements, have helped draw China into the non-proliferation regime, it is important to see them in this larger context.

The engagement approach became feasible when China dropped its formerly close alignment with the Soviet Union and began looking for security alternatives. During the Cold War, the approach toward China was still heavily conditioned by other Western instruments of control, such as Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM), designed to keep state of the art military technologies out of the hands of communist adversaries. This approach has been greatly relaxed since the end of the Cold War. The West’s overhaul of technology transfer controls has been complicated by globalization and free trade principles. Related U.S. non-proliferation efforts have had to cope with not only the official behavior of the Chinese government but also the hidden activities of autonomous Chinese manufacturing and trading entities that have been encouraged to sell goods and services for profit in order to sustain themselves.

A "given" in this approach was that China was already a nuclear-weapon state. Hence, the objectives of drawing China into the non-proliferation regime were not to de-nuclearize China, but rather to elicit China’s natural security interest and cooperation in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to additional countries, including neighbors. The same logic applied later to winning China over to helping prevent the spread of missiles and chemical and biological weapons capabilities.

Having been a major adversary in Korea and Vietnam, as well as in the Cold War, China was not involved in one of the most important post–World War II and post–Cold War non-proliferation mechanisms: the central security alliances that were pivotal to winning deep non-proliferation commitments from such U.S. allies as Germany, Japan, and South Korea. Rather, the inducements offered China have consisted largely of recognition of its status as a major power by the world community and the access to international trade, capital, and technology that has supported rapid Chinese economic growth and modernization since 1983. Sanctions and penalties, as well as inducements, have played a significant role in shaping China’s increasingly constructive role in international affairs.

The political ability of the United States and its non-proliferation partners to define and administer legal sanctions depends in part on target countries’ legal undertakings and commitments. Sanctions devised for NPT or IAEA parties and those for non-parties may, for example, require different legal starting points. In the case of China, important legal standards had to be established—first, by China’s joining the IAEA in 1984 (opening it to direct knowledge and familiarity with the international practice of nuclear facility and materials safeguards and inspections), and second, by China’s joining the NPT in 1992.

The fundamental nuclear non-proliferation standards for China are those incurred by its adherence to the NPT after March 1992. As a nuclear-weapon state, China was then obligated for the first time, under NPT Article I, "not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; and not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, or control over such weapons or explosive devices" (emphasis added). Under NPT Article III (2), China is obligated, along with all other parties, "not to provide: (a) source or special fissionable material, or (b) equipment or material especially designed or prepared for the processing, use or production of special fissionable material, to any non-nuclear weapon State for peaceful purposes, unless the source or special fissionable material shall be subject to the [IAEA] safeguards required by this article."

Bringing China to a common international understanding of the meaning of these provisions has also required that China be persuaded to embrace international nuclear export control guidelines and understandings, including those that cover dual-use materials and equipment. China only became part of the Zangger Committee at the end of 1997, but this implies that China now undertakes to understand the lists of controlled items, to consult on their meaning in particular cases, and to apply the same interpretation of IAEA safeguards requirements in regulating its own exports. This does not guarantee that differences of interpretation will not occur, but it guarantees that the other members can challenge Chinese practices that do not conform to a common understanding.

Under U.S. law, certain commercial sales and technology transfers to China are subject to conditions that China meet non-proliferation standards in its own policies and behavior. These conditions are often embodied in framework agreements and then applied in export licensing decisions. The most important areas of embargoed technology that the United States took steps to make available to China in the 1980s were: civilian nuclear equipment, technology and services, conventional weapons systems and military technology, military aviation technology, advanced computers, telecommunications technology, and the approvals needed for China to supply commercial space-launch services to American entities interested in launching satellites. These areas were opened to China in hope of China’s commitment to satisfy certain conditions, usually based on U.S. national security and non-proliferation interests. Satisfying executive branch and congressional conditions for a nuclear trade agreement with China took nearly 15 years.

Certain U.S. statutes and legislative actions focus on nuclear non-proliferation criteria and related sanctions that are specifically applicable to China. One is the 1985 Congressional Resolution of Approval of the U.S.-China Agreement for Nuclear Cooperation, with its three broad conditions and requirement for presidential certification. Even though this agreement recently was certified, specific nuclear trade items will require licensing, case by case, and could be denied if China is not in compliance with its NPT obligations or with U.S. statutory requirements for non-proliferation practices. Another is the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 1990-91, which gathered the post-Tiananmen crisis sanctions governing U.S. foreign policy toward China into one statute, covering conventional arms, civil nuclear trade, cooperation related to outer space, and dual-use technology.

In the domain of missile non-proliferation, the 1987 and 1993 MTCR guidelines are basic reference points for U.S. sanctions laws aimed at preventing transfers of nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles, components, and production technology. The basic sanctions laws applicable to China’s missile export behavior have been incorporated in the Arms Export Control Act and the Export Administration Act, as periodically updated and amended.

 

Developments

Apprehension that China might suffer major upheaval or disintegration pressures after the 1989 Tiananmen crisis—endangering controls against theft of weapons or diversion of fissile materials from facilities—persisted during the long period of Deng Xiaoping’s physical decline in the mid-1990s. Uncertainty whether the leadership succession would be smooth or lead to an overt, divisive struggle for power remained until recently. Deng finally died on February 19, 1997, however, and his mantle passed in an orderly manner to Jiang Zemin, who remains president and Communist party general secretary, as well as chairman of the Central Military Commission. Li Peng kept his position as prime minister and head of the government apparatus in 1997, but moved over to become head of the national legislature when his term as prime minister expired in March 1998. Zhu Rongji, who was elevated to the number three position in the Communist party’s inner circle, has succeeded Li Peng as premier.

Continuity and political stability thus appear to have prevailed in China after Deng Xiaoping. The incumbent leaders face economic challenges as the remaining obstacles to reform are addressed, but they probably will succeed in maintaining a relatively high rate of economic growth. While the danger of structural disintegration over a struggle for power at the top in China thus appears to be receding, concern about the opaqueness and uncertain effectiveness of China’s internal nuclear controls against penetration and diversion into illicit channels nevertheless remains high.

Nuclear Exports to Pakistan

China’s assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program was brought into the spotlight again in 1996 by disclosure of China’s controversial nuclear transfer of ring magnets for use in Pakistan’s unsafeguarded uranium-enrichment program. China’s export of ring magnets seemed to contradict its claims that it did not help other countries develop nuclear weapons and that it was tightening its nuclear export controls.

According to press reports, the Clinton Administration determined in August 1995 that China had sold 5,000 ring magnets valued at $70,000 to the Kahuta Research Laboratory between December 1994 and mid-1995. This unsafeguarded gas-centrifuge facility had produced weapons-grade, highly enriched uranium until July 1991, when Pakistan agreed to an American demand to freeze its production of HEU. The custom-built magnets, made of an advanced samarium-cobalt alloy, would enable Pakistan to upgrade and replace its enrichment centrifuges at the rate of 1,000 to 2,000 machines a year. Although ring magnets are not on the nuclear trigger list, they are an integral part of magnetic suspension bearings, which are controlled, as dual-use items, by the Zangger Committee. While Pakistan denied that any such transfer occurred, China maintained that its nuclear cooperation with Pakistan was solely for peaceful purposes.

China’s sale of ring magnets to the unsafeguarded Kahuta facility set off a major controversy in Washington. Some believed the transfer should have triggered the 1994 Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act sanctions, which require a cutoff of all U.S. Export-Import Bank financing to any country which "has willfully aided and abetted any non-nuclear-weapon state" in acquiring unsafeguarded enriched uranium or plutonium. The Export-Import Bank extends about $1 billion in credits each year to American companies doing business in China and a cut-off was widely estimated to endanger about $10 billion in proposed credits. On February 28, 1996, the United States suspended the approval of new Export-Import Bank loan applications related to China.

U.S.–Chinese discussions on the issue culminated on April 19 in a meeting between Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen at The Hague, where the groundwork was laid for its resolution. The U.S. decision resulting from these discussions, announced on May 10, was not to impose sanctions against China, given three factors: (1) the finding that senior-level Chinese officials were unaware of the ring magnet transfer; (2) China’s new public commitment not to "provide assistance to unsafeguarded nuclear facilities;" and (3) China’s pledge to engage in a dialogue with the United States on improving export controls. Later reports indicated that the Chinese government punished the official responsible for the ring magnet transfer. Secretary Christopher explained that "Senior Chinese officials have explicitly confirmed our understanding that the Chinese policy of not assisting unsafeguarded nuclear facilities would prevent future sales . . . of ring magnets."

Nuclear Exports to Iran

Iran has been the other major recipient of Chinese exports of nuclear and missile technology and expertise. By 1995, however, there were signs that China’s nuclear cooperation with Iran was being scaled back. A factor in China’s retrenchment of nuclear assistance to Iran may have been Russian competition as an alternative supplier. Russia agreed to supply light-water nuclear reactors to Iran and to help Iran finish construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant abandoned by German contractors during the Iran-Iraq war. U.S. opposition to China’s contract to sell two 300-MWe pressurized water reactors to Iran probably also played a part. Iranian shortages of capital may have been a third factor. At any rate, in September 1995, China finally agreed to "suspend for the time being" its reactor sale to Iran. A few months later, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman acknowledged that "the implementation of the agreements between China and Iran on nuclear cooperation has ceased."

China continued until 1997 to assist Iran in constructing a plant near Esfahan to produce uranium hexafluoride, the material fed into gas centrifuges for enrichment, and reports indicate that Chinese technicians are assisting Iran with other parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, such as uranium mining and processing and fuel fabrication. These activities, however, appear to have been carried out in accordance with the NPT and under IAEA safeguards.

Nuclear Exports to Other Countries

Recently China signed agreements with Algeria covering the second and third stages of 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. China’s long-standing nuclear cooperation with Algeria remains sensitive today in light of Algeria’s interest in reprocessing facilities. While Algeria formally acceded to the NPT in January 1995 and signed a safeguards agreement with the IAEA in May 1996, its reported "lack of candour" on the purposes of the hot-cell facility it has built—which is connected by a covered canal to the research reactor at Ain Oussera—created uncertainty.

Algeria declared the hot-cell facility to the IAEA in 1992. If it were used in conjunction with a boosted output of the Es Salem reactor, which could produce up to 5 kg of plutonium a year, the hot-cell facility could separate weapons-grade plutonium. By the summer of 1997, IAEA inquiries appeared to satisfy U.S. officials that Algeria will operate the hot-cell facility under safeguards and allow IAEA environmental sampling, and that it will not build up an inventory of separated plutonium from spent fuel. Of additional interest is a larger facility nearby that Algeria has not declared to the IAEA as a nuclear facility but that some Western officials believe may be intended as a large-scale reprocessing facility.

Missile Exports to Pakistan

In the early 1990s, the United States twice imposed and lifted Category II sanctions on Chinese and Pakistani organizations related to transfers of M-11 components or missiles—in return for Chinese assurances that such exports would not continue and that China would abide by the MTCR guidelines. After sanctions were lifted for the second time in October 1994, however, reports of continued Chinese assistance to Pakistan’s missile program recurred.This situation evidently was reflected in the Pentagon’s April 1996 report, which stated, "China remains Pakistan’s most important supplier of missile-related technologies."

Accumulating evidence of Chinese transfer of complete M-11 missiles to Pakistan was revealed in press reports in the fall of 1996. One quoted a recent U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (a consensus document of U.S. intelligence agencies) indicating that Pakistan already had roughly three dozen M-11s stored in canisters at the Sargodha Air Force Base west of Lahore, along with maintenance facilities and missile launchers. Although these missiles were not "operational," it was said they could be unpacked, mated with launchers, and made ready for launch in 48 hours. An even more disturbing conclusion of this report was that Pakistan, using blueprints and equipment supplied by China, began construction of a factory in late 1995 capable of producing short-range, solid-fuel missiles based on the Chinese-designed M-11. This factory, located near Rawalpindi, was then expected to be operational in one or two years.

Chinese supply of complete missile systems or production technology covered by the MTCR would be a major violation of the guidelines and, according to U.S. law, should trigger Category I sanctions, which could block all trade between the United States and Chinese aerospace and electronics firms. China and Pakistan both have denied the existence of the missile plant. In April 1997, State Department official Robert Einhorn reiterated the Clinton Administration’s concerns about Chinese transfers of missile-related components, technology, and production technology to Pakistan. However, he said that the United States could not make the determination that complete, operational missiles had been transferred; such a determination would require a "high evidentiary standard," since the consequences of sanctions on U.S. firms would be highly damaging.

Missile Exports to Iran

China has been a supplier to Iran of anti-ship cruise missiles (Silkworms, C-801s, and C-802s), since the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. More recently, China has also played a role in Iran’s efforts to set up an indigenous ballistic missile development and production program. In June 1995, the CIA apparently concluded that China had delivered guidance systems, rocket fuel ingredients, and computerized machine tools to Iran to assist that country in improving imported ballistic missiles and producing its own missiles. In August 1996, the China Precision Engineering Institute reportedly agreed to sell missile guidance equipment to Iran. China has transferred short-range CSS-8 ballistic missiles to Iran. In addition, China has sold ten fast-attack craft armed with C-802 anti-ship cruise missiles to Iran and Iran is modifying additional fast-attack craft to launch the missile.

Missile Exports to Other Countries

Syria also has received Chinese assistance for its ballistic missile program. A 1988 deal to sell Syria the M-9 missile was apparently canceled under U.S. pressure, but China has supplied Syria with technical expertise for its missile program and ingredients for solid rocket fuel. Chinese assistance to Syria’s missile program reportedly continued into 1996. China has also sold Silkworm anti-ship cruise missiles to Iraq.

In 1988, China supplied Saudi Arabia with some 30 or more DF-3 (CSS-2) medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs). Although China had deployed these missiles earlier in its own arsenal with nuclear warheads, Chinese and Saudi officials insist that the missiles transferred to Saudi Arabia are equipped only with conventional warheads. Several hundred Chinese technicians maintain the missiles at their bases at Al-Sulayyil and Al-Leel. These missiles are nearing the end of their operational life and Saudi Arabia has begun looking for replacements. U.S. missile sanctions laws could be triggered if China or Saudi Arabia "conspires or attempts to engage in" transfers of CSS-2 replacements.

China’s Fissile Material Stockpile

A frequently overlooked proliferation threat posed by China is the large stockpile of weapons-usable fissile material it has produced over the past 30 years. Although the situation in China currently seems more stable than in Russia, increased political and economic instability could raise the risk of diversion of fissile material from China’s nuclear complex. The possibilities run the spectrum from a breakup of China into multiple states, the breakdown of central authority and the rise of regional warlords, or a steady deterioration of central authority that would increase the opportunity for theft and smuggling of nuclear material or weapons.

China produced weapons-usable enriched uranium from 1964 until 1987 at two sites, Lanzhou and Heping. Plutonium was also produced at two sites, Jiuquan and Guangyuan, from 1968 until 1991. There are several unofficial estimates on how much weapons-usable fissile material China has produced, but Beijing has not disclosed the size of either its nuclear weapon or fissile material stockpiles. Experts believe that China has tested about 45 nuclear explosive devices and built about 300 strategic warheads and 150 tactical warheads.Together with materials used in the fuel for civil and military reactors, a considerable portion of the fissile materials produced must have been consumed or must be otherwise unavailable for weapons. According to the most recent estimates, it is believed that by the end of 1994, China’s residual fissile material stockpiles may consist of as much as 4 metric tons of Pu and 23 metric tons of HEU—enough fissile material for approximately 2,700 nuclear weapons.

China presumably has stored the residual fissile material stocks at various nuclear facilities. However, the locations and amounts of China’s non-weaponized fissile material have not been declared and are not specifically known, nor is the degree of security at the storage sites known. The China National Nuclear Corporation (which has the status of a government ministry) "produces, stores, and controls all fissile material for civilian as well as military applications." It is estimated that about 14 sites associated with the nuclear weapons program in China have significant quantities of weapons-usable fissile material. The primary locations of non-weaponized fissile material are believed to be China’s plutonium-production and uranium-enrichment facilities as well as nuclear-weapons research institutes and other nuclear fuel-cycle facilities across the country.

China has conducted research and development on gas centrifuge technology for uranium enrichment as the likely technology choice to replace the gaseous-diffusion plants. Russia recently agreed to supply China with a gas-centrifuge plant to produce low-enriched uranium. The facility was expected to be in operation by 1997 and could be expanded.

Information on China’s material protection, control, and accounting (MPC&A) system is scarce, but the United States has been concerned enough to initiate discussions on MPC&A, among other issues, between the U.S. and Chinese national nuclear laboratories. There have been contacts between the nuclear weapons laboratories in the United States and China since 1994, and five joint workshops were scheduled for 1996 with the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP), China’s main nuclear weapons research center. Although China’s MPC&A system is modeled after the Soviet system, an expert at one of the U.S. national laboratories ranked China’s MPC&A system as better than that of the Soviet Union before it collapsed. In 1996, China commissioned a computerized "national nuclear materials accounting system" at about twelve nuclear facilities to improve its ability to prevent the illegal loss, theft or transfer of nuclear materials.

China’s Nuclear Weapons

China’s nuclear arsenal of approximately 450 weapons would make it the third largest nuclear military power today. China has only seven intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of striking the continental United States (the DF-5s). It has a single nuclear submarine (SSBN), the Xia, based on the Shandong Peninsula. China is currently modernizing its strategic missile force with three new solid-fuel ballistic missiles, including a submarine-launched missile. A new generation of nuclear-powered submarines (Type 094) reportedly are scheduled for construction after the year 2000 and would carry 16 JL-2 missiles. Some reports indicate that China’s new DF-31 ICBMs, first tested in 1995, will be deployed with multiple warheads, but there has been no official confirmation that China has developed MIRV capability. China’s attempts to acquire advanced SS-18 missile-guidance technology from Russia and Ukraine may have been linked to the pursuit of MIRV capability.

China has expressed concern that current U.S. missile defense programs could neutralize China’s ICBMs, its principal strategic deterrent against the United States. The combination of a national missile defense covering the United States and the sale of advanced theater missile defense systems to America’s Asian allies would greatly complicate China’s nuclear planning. China has reportedly tested intermediate-range ballistic missiles with penetration aids to foil missile defenses, and similar measures are expected to be added to China’s new generation of long-range ballistic missiles. Although the United States with Russia, and Russia with China, have agreed to strategic missile de-targeting measures between their respective sides, China has not agreed to de-targeting measures with the United States, and thus presumably still targets some of its long-range nuclear missiles at American cities.

China would have been the last of the five nuclear powers to become familiar with and equip its nuclear weapons with modern permissive action links (PALs)—devices that prevent unauthorized arming of a weapon, or that may disable it if it is tampered with, and thus are important safeguards against unauthorized launch and accidental detonation. It was not until after the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident, reportedly, that the leadership in Beijing began to think about how to ensure control over its nuclear arsenal during times of domestic crisis. It is not known if Chinese tactical nuclear weapons are deployed in the field (along with their delivery systems) or kept in storage. China’s means of providing physical security of warheads in transit or storage likewise is not known—nor is the extent to which PALs are actually used in different types of warhead, deployed or stored.

China’s Non-Proliferation Commitments

With China an established nuclear-weapon state and permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, Beijing’s nuclear policies, attitudes toward non-proliferation effectiveness of export controls, and quality of participation in global non-proliferation regimes naturally carry weight in the decision-making of other countries. Having been an outsider to most international arms control initiatives during the Cold War, China never signed the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty, only became a member of the IAEA in 1984, acceded to the NPT as recently as 1992, declined until 1997 to join the international Zangger Committee, and still declines to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group. While it has agreed to observe the published MTCR guidelines of 1987, it still is not a full partner and may not be fully observant of the revised MTCR guidelines of 1993. It also may have a unilateral interpretation of certain MTCR guidelines. It is clear that China shuns "informal" multilateral control arrangements such as the NSG, MTCR and, in the chemical weapons area, the Australia Group.

Nevertheless, China made notable strides to join formal arms control regimes in the 1990s—beginning with its accession to the NPT in 1992, its signature in 1993 and ratification in 1997 of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), and its cessation of nuclear weapon explosive testing and signature of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in September, 1996. China has supported the multilateral negotiations on a fissile-material production cutoff convention. China also acceded to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1984. Moreover, China has gradually clarified and upgraded the commitments it makes through export controls to nuclear and missile non-proliferation objectives. These nuclear export control clarifications and practical improvements are worthy of note, as are the areas of continued divergence.

After joining the NPT in 1992, China enunciated three policy principles to guide its approach to nuclear exports:

1. All nuclear exports are for peaceful purposes only;

2. All recipients must accept IAEA safeguards on their nuclear imports from China; and

3. Recipients may not retransfer nuclear items imported from China without China’s consent.

In July 1993, China committed itself to report its trade in nuclear materials and its exports of nuclear equipment and related materials to the IAEA. In the aftermath of the 1996 disclosure of its ring magnet export to Pakistan, China agreed not to provide assistance to unsafeguarded nuclear facilities and pledged to engage in a dialogue with the United States on improving export controls.

Clinton–Jiang Zemin Summit of October 1997

In preparing for the U.S.–China summit of October 1997, U.S. negotiators sought clear Chinese action on four major points needed for President Clinton to certify that China meets the congressional conditions attached to the 1985 agreement for nuclear cooperation:

1. China’s issuance of regulations on nuclear and nuclear-related exports that are consistent with international standards;

2. China’s formal membership in the Zangger Committee;

3. China’s strict adherence to its May 1996 pledge to export only to nuclear facilities that are under IAEA inspection; and

4. China’s cessation of nuclear assistance to Iran.

China met these U.S. requirements shortly before or during the summit. On September 11, China adopted and published upgraded nuclear export control procedures, including:

1. A centralized approval procedure, in the State Council or cabinet, of all its foreign sales of nuclear materials and equipment;

2. A requirement for more explicit recipient "end-use" assurances, namely recipient guarantees that nuclear equipment and materials imported from China will not be used for the purpose of creating a nuclear explosive device; and

3. A prohibition on export of nuclear and nuclear-related equipment to, or personnel exchange and technology cooperation with, nuclear facilities in any non-nuclear-weapon state that is not under IAEA inspection.

Then, on September 30, China announced that it would join the Zangger Committee as a full member but would not alter its current policy of not imposing full-scope safeguards on its nuclear exports. China formally joined the Zangger Committee on October 16 and published its own "nuclear exports control list" of controlled technologies and equipment, including nuclear-related, dual-use equipment and technology. U.S. officials recognized that China’s list does essentially conform to the Zangger list. During the summit, China also pledged in a confidential agreement to forego future nuclear cooperation as well as phase out existing nuclear cooperation with Iran, even under IAEA safeguards. Two non-sensitive exceptions in existing China-Iran nuclear cooperation are grandfathered: one relating to completion of a zero-power research reactor and the other to a factory that makes zirconium cladding for power-plant fuel rods.

With these Chinese steps established, President Clinton announced that he planned to certify China on the points contained in the congressional conditions attached to the 1985 U.S.–China agreement for nuclear cooperation, and to send the required reports forward to Congress. Congress has 30 session days to evaluate the reports, and could block certification by a two-thirds vote during that period. While there was criticism of the summit outcome by members of Congress, President Clinton’s certification was not overridden and the cooperation agreement took effect on March 18, 1998.

Certification of the nuclear trade agreement was not tied by the Clinton Administration to objectionable Chinese practices in the missile export area. China did not forego its right to sell to Iran or other countries those missiles that are not controlled by the MTCR. However, it was reported that China had pledged, presumably confidentially, that it would halt "further sales" of anti-ship cruise missiles (e.g., the short-range C802s) to Iran—and therefore also would not sell to Iran the even more dangerous longer-range anti-ship cruise missiles.

 

Prospects

Compared with its past nuclear export practices, by the October 1997 U.S.–China summit, China appeared to have made decisive strides toward conforming its nuclear export policies, laws, and regulations to international standards. The primary remaining formal shortcomings are that:

1. China still has not agreed to accept full-scope safeguards as an export requirement and has not agreed to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group (which goes further than the Zangger Committee by upholding that requirement);

2. China has not publicly adopted a "catch-all" obligation to deny nuclear or nuclear-related exports or assistance to a country that might satisfy formal IAEA and NPT criteria yet have a dubious non-proliferation record for other reasons; and

3. China has not yet demonstrated its commitment to vigilantly follow up and monitor the end-use assurances on its nuclear and nuclear-related exports within recipient states and facilities.

Moreover, formal adherence to legal standards is one thing, while effective enforcement of the underlying purposes is another. Past experience suggests that it will take some time to determine whether China’s practices in nuclear exports and nuclear cooperation will meet international standards for nuclear-related and dual-use equipment, materials, and technology that could be used for nuclear weapon purposes. In addition, it is one thing for the government of China to promulgate new export control regulations and another to ensure that they are effectively enforced by obtaining the compliance of all nuclear-related domestic manufacturing and trading firms—many of which are connected with the military yet operate as profit centers or revenue-raising mechanisms—as well as the compliance of the more typical, public-sector scientific and technical organizations and laboratories.

China is still on a learning curve, and endemic problems of a political, cultural, and organizational nature exist in China’s decision-making and export control apparatus. There may be, as the old adage goes, "more than a slip between the cup and the lip." Thus, continued vigilance and diplomatic interchange with China will almost certainly continue to be necessary on nuclear matters—as it has also been necessary in the past among culturally closer and more readily cooperative Western partners—to ensure that international nuclear non-proliferation standards are understood and observed.

The missile and chemical and biological areas will also require diligent attention. Up to 1994, China made progress on MTCR requirements. But it is still not clear that its professed restraint applies, as the MTCR requires, to missile components and technology—nor, indeed, that the restraint applies to more than complete "ground-to-ground" missiles. Compliance in this area, which is not defined by a treaty, is harder to nail down with standards that China can accept politically—and also entails more scope for ambiguities. The chemical area is defined by treaty, provides for declarations, and lists restricted items, but it covers a very large industrial domain. Considerable effort will be required to work out reliable non-proliferation standards in these areas. But progress with China in the nuclear areas should add confidence to such efforts in other areas.

In the lead-up to the U.S.–China summit of October 1997, the corporate sector made much of the potential—on the order of $50 billion—for large civilian nuclear sales by Western firms to China. Now that the agreement for cooperation is in force, such trade by U.S. firms presumably will go ahead. But proponents as well as critics of these transactions should keep in mind that they will require case-by-case approval and may run into difficulties if China’s non-proliferation practices continue to raise difficult questions. This is an area where sanctions can be a natural part of the exchange process. It should also be recognized that the potential nuclear market in China may not be as lucrative as some imagine—not only because it will be divided, such as it is, among firms based in several supplier countries and spread over many years but also because China will almost certainly attempt to use this trade to build up its own civilian nuclear engineering self-sufficiency for domestic as well as export purposes. At the same time, if significant nuclear trade with China does materialize, the resulting cooperation could also contribute to greater Chinese understanding of its stakes in non-proliferation as well as in a culture of nuclear safety.

 

Tracking Nuclear Proliferation: A Guide in Maps and Charts, 1998