[far-east] chinese weapons are perpetuating conflict

A damning report by Amnesty International, released yesterday, states: "China is fast emerging as one of the world's biggest, most secretive and most irresponsible arms exporters."

It accuses China of engaging pariah regimes such as Sudan, Zimbabwe and Iran, and says Chinese-made handguns are reaching criminal gangs from South Africa to Australia. The report cites regular military shipments to Burma's junta, and the export of helicopters, military trucks, guns and ammunition to Sudan's government, helping to perpetuate "widespread killings, rapes and abductions" in Darfur.

China also continued to supply thousands of rifles and grenades to Nepal after King Gyanendra declared martial law at a time when other countries had stopped arms exports there to try to calm the civil conflict with Maoist rebels.

Last year, Beijing used the term "cautious and responsible" to describe its approach to arms exports, but the Amnesty report says: "Its record in supplying arms to countries such as Iran, Myanmar [Burma], Pakistan and Sudan suggests, by contrast, a dangerously permissive approach to licensing arms exports."

The report, China: Sustaining Conflict and Human Rights Abuses, says it has singled out China because it is the only big arms exporter not to sign up to any multinational agreements on arms export control.

Amnesty estimated China exported at least $US1 billion ($1.3 billion) worth of arms a year, often exchanging weapons for raw materials, but said it was difficult to be certain, since in 1997 China stopped submitting data to the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms. Amnesty called on China to publicly and annually reveal all its arms exports and to join international efforts to control the arms trade.

Li Hui, the Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs, yesterday rejected Amnesty's report, saying China strictly followed relevant international conventions. A later written request to the Foreign Ministry asking why the country has not submitted arms export information to the register for eight years was unanswered.

China is one of the world's top 10 arms exporters; many of the companies involved were set up by the police state agency and the People's Liberation Army, which since economic liberalisation in the late 1970s have built up one of the most potent business networks in the country. The report says unspecified Western companies may also be involved in making and exporting arms.

China has been steadily extending its diplomatic reach by focusing on increasing trade and security links with individual nations, especially those rich in oil and other resources.It has done so without reference to issues such as human rights, which it regards as "internal or domestic affairs" - the same approach it demands be applied to itself.

Exports include:

* More than 200 military trucks to Sudan last August.

* Four hundred military trucks to Burma the same month.

* A deal to supply nearly 25,000 rifles and 18,000 grenades to Nepal in 2005-06.

* An increasing illicit trade in Norinco pistols.

Mary-Anne Toy, Herald Correspondent in Beijing, June 13, 2006

posted by james higham at Tuesday, August 08, 2006