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 | Friday, April 14, 2000, updated at 14:48(GMT+8) | ||||||||||||
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US Nuke Action Concerns ChinaA senior Chinese disarmament official said the country will not sit back and watch its legitimate security interests undermined without taking countermeasures.Ambassador Sha Zukang, director-general of the Department of Arms Control and Disarmament with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said recent profound changes, particularly action by the United States, "may force China to review its policies on a wide range of arms control and non-proliferation issues." That US action, he said, is its development of the "National Missile Defence" system and its proliferation of an advanced "Theatre Missile Defence" system in Northeast Asia and Taiwan. Sha's remarks come before a conference next month to review the international Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Sha said China's participation in arms-control negotiations, particularly regarding nuclear weapons, is based on two conditions. One, he said, "these negotiations and the treaties or agreements resulted from these negotiations must not undermine the global strategic balance and stability." And, two, "China's important strategic security interests" must also be protected, said Sha. China has worked well on arms control and non-proliferation with western countries since the end of the Cold War, Sha said. China has again and again reiterated support for the total worldwide elimination and prohibition of nuclear weapons. It has also unilaterally and unconditionally committed itself not to be the first to use nuclear weapons or to use them against nuclear-free states and zones. The Chinese Government has backed up these positions by formally submitting the international Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to the National People's Congress, China's top legislature for ratification, Sha said. Sha, also reiterating China's support for negotiations on the Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), said the prevention of introducing arms to outer space deserves more urgent attention and that he hopes substantive work will be carried out on it as well as on nuclear disarmament and FMCT. The non-proliferation treaty took effect in 1970 and indefinitely extended in 1995. China joined in 1992. Sha predicted that this year's review conference will be both "important" and "difficult." The US not only has refused to ratify the test-ban treaty but also wants to change or withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, he said. Also, he said, the international community's failure to counter the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in 1998 has further imperiled non-proliferation efforts. "It is important that every country participating in the conference adopt a co-operative rather than a confrontational approach," said Sha. Sha further urged nuclear-capable nations to explicitly renounce nuclear deterrent policies that would allow them to make the first strike. He criticized "a certain superpower" for advancing its overwhelming first-strike capability while quickly developing a National Missile Defence system capable of neutralizing any possible counter-strike from a smaller nuclear-capable state. "Any inadvertent transparency (of the nature of China's nuclear arms programme) may further disrupt the global strategic balance," said Sha. Necessary ambiguity about the quantity and composition of China's nuclear arsenal has been an important means for it to ensure the effectiveness of its limited nuclear forces, Sha said. He added that such ambiguity is also a necessary prerequisite for China to keep its no-first-strike policy and its nuclear forces minimal.
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