Chinese Arms Research Articles

The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform: 1978-2000

Acknowledgments 1. China's foreign and national security policy-making process: it is changing and does it matter? David M. Lampton Part I. Institutions and Localities: 2. The central leadership, supraministry and party departments Lu Ning 3. The influence of the fun: China's central military commission and its relationship with the military, and state decision-making systems Tai Ming Cheug 4. The external relations of China's provinces Peter T. Y. Cheung and James T. H. Tang Part II. Elite and Societal Opinion: 5. The foreign policy outlook of China's 'third generation' elite H. Lyman Miller and Liu Xiaohong 6. The domestic context of Chinese foreign policy: does 'public opinion' matter? Joseph Fewsmith and Stanley Rosen Part III. International System Influences: 7. Empowered and restrained: Chinese foreign policy in the age of economic interdependence Thomas G. Moore and Dixia Yang 8. The impact of international regimes on Chinese foreign policy-making: broadening perspectives Elizabeth Economy Part IV. Case Studies: 9. Two steps forward, one step back: the dynamics of Chinese nonproliferation and arms control policy-making in an era of reform Bates Gill 10. Chinese decision-making regarding Taiwan 1979-2000 Michael D. Swaine 11. The case of China's accession to GATT/WTO Margaret M. Pearson 12. The making of China's Korea policy in the era of reform Samuel S. Kim Notes Index.

China and the Middle East: The Quest for Influence

Introduction - P R Kumaraswamy China and Israel - P R Kumaraswamy Normalization and After Chinese-Palestinian Relations - William W Haddad and Mary Foeldi-Hardy China and Iraq - John Calabrese A Stake in Stability Sino-Turkish Relations - Mehmet Ogutcu Preparing for the Next Century Sino-Pakistan Relations and the Middle East - Samina Yasmeen China's Middle East Strategy - Barry Rubin Chinese Arms Exports to Iran - Bates Gill Chinese Policies on Arms Control and Proliferation in the Middle East - Gerald Steinberg China and Proliferation - Ashok Kapur Implications for India China's Economic Relations with the Middle East - Yitzhak Shichor New Dimensions The Middle Kingdom Meets the Middle East - David Dewitt Challenges and Opportunities

Drafting the Basic Provisions for a Bicoastal Chinese Peace Agreement: A Preliminary Proposal

Abstract The relationship between Taiwan and mainland China is “intra-national interstate relations or transpolital relations,” and signing a peace agreement seems necessary. There is a strong desire among the people of the Republic of China on Taiwan to maintain peace and tranquillity in the Taiwan Strait, The Taiwanese people also find that policies fostering the beliefs that “Chinese people won't attack Chinese people” and “national reconciliation” match their basic interests in sharing Chinese sovereignty and gradually moving towards integration with the mainland people. After describing the peace agreement process between Taipei and Beijing, this research affirms that the core of a peace agreement should be arms control. In this paper an attempt is made to draft a bicoastal Chinese peace agreement from Taipei's perspective. The draft agreement consists of a preamble and eleven provisions. Provision II, for example, states the following: “Under the principle of sharing sovereignty, both sides of the Taiwan Strait would not invade the other's land (as opposed to territory) under jurisdiction nor interfere in each other's internal affairs.” As another example, Provision III stipulates, “To avoid military confrontation, a buffer zone will be designated by both sides of the Taiwan Strait.” The final section discusses how the United States would regard bicoastal Chinese arms control. Taipei must make sure that the outcomes of any arms control agreement with the mainland not threaten Taiwan's sovereign existence.

The Anti Sihanouk Coup d'etat in the Context of the Vietnam War

The coup d'etat against Cambodian chief of state Norodom Sihanouk in March, 1970 marked a turning point in Cambodian history. This article examines its causes, process, and outcome in the context of the war in Vietnam. Using mainly Vietnamese sources and declassified U. S. materials, the author tries to explain the structural back ground of the coup.After 1965, the Worker's Party of Vietnam (VWP) needed Chinese arms supplies via the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville due to an adequate supply via the Ho Chi Minh route to the southern theaters especially Nam Bo. The VWP tried to maintain good relations with Sihanouk and opposed the armed struggle policy of Pol Pot's Comunist Party of Cambodia (CPK) against Sihanouk regime.United State military intelligence recognized the importance of the Sihanoukville arms route as shown by reconaissance operations into Cambodia, although the Johnson administration rejected any military operations there.The Nixon administration feverd military intelligence angainst State Department and C. I. A.. The American military and diplomatic stalemate led toan aggressive policy towards the Sihanouk regime for its arms transfer to the Vietnamese liberation forces.As late as January 1970, after Sihanouk had left Cambodia for medical treatment, the White House decided to hatch the coup. Sirik Matak, then acting prime minister of the Cambodian Government, and Lon Nol's younger brother Lon Non acted as agents of the White House. Even before the coup, they had closed the Sihanoukville armes route. After the coup, the Cambodian government severed it's relations with the VWP, and despite Chinese efforts to renew arms transfer for the Vietnamese, Lon Nol never changed his mind.Nixon's aim for the coup was realized, but it's effects remained temporary. The VWP moved quickly to form an allignment between Sihanouk and Pol Pot, moving its southern main forces into Cambodia to link up with its logistic forces from Laos.The U. S. failed to gain an advantage either in the battlefields or the negotiation table. As a result the CPK gained wide areas of support both inside and outside Cambodia. The VWP failed to evaluate Pol Pot's nature at that time, the only longterm effect of the U. S. political ambitious initiated coup and the VWP reaction was the unitnentional opportunities it offerd to Pol Pot's.

Chinese Arms Exports to Iran

Chinese Arms Exports to Iran

China's Arms Acquisitions from Abroad: A Quest for 'Superb and Secret Weapons'

China's Arms Acquisitions from Abroad assesses current Chinese arms imports in the light of China's historical efforts to modernize its weapon-production capacity through foreign acquisitions. It considers the implications of these imports for future security developments in the East Asian region.

Prospects for Chinese Nuclear Force Modernization: Limited Deterrence Versus Multilateral Arms Control

In this article I argue that China currently has the technical capacity to increase the size of its nuclear forces by about two to three times and to improve its operational flexibility.1Whether it does so or not will depend primarily on four variables or constraints: trends in thinking about nuclear doctrine that justify these sorts of changes; the economic and technological resources available; China′s commitment to nuclear arms-related arms control conventions; and strategic and arms control decisions by the United States. I suggest that for the foreseeable future the variables relating to doctrine, economics/technology and Chinese arms control preferences are all relatively fixed or constant. That is, present trends in all three suggest a continuing will and ability to modernize Chinese nuclear forces. The last variable is somewhat less fixed, and thus may be the one that is most amenable to external manipulation.

Learning Versus Adaptation: Explaining Change in Chinese Arms Control Policy in the 1980s and 1990s

One of the most striking elements of the Gorbachev revolution in the Soviet Union was the emergence of 'new thinking' about international relations and Soviet security policy. Amidst debate, Soviet new thinkers boldly abandoned many of the deeply rooted assumptions about the nature of the international environment and the causes of state security that had characterized Soviet foreign policy in the past. Central to the new thinking was the proposition that cooperative, not unilateral, security was the source of state security. In other words, a state was secure when other states felt unthreatened, rather than when it possessed a superior ability to threaten adversaries. From this proposition came a couple of other key notions. One was that military force was not the most effective way of ensuring security, indeed that it should be a last resort minimally applied. This argument undergirded new ideas about minimum deterrence that were anathema to the war-fighting tendencies in Soviet nuclear thought. The second key notion was that state interests could be subordinated to global values without a loss of security or welfare. At its root, then, the

Explaining and Influencing Chinese Arms Transfers

Explaining and Influencing Chinese Arms Transfers

Determinants and directions for Chinese weapons imports

Abstract This article assesses and presents the determinants and directions of Chinese acquisitions of weapons and weapons technology from abroad, focusing on major conventional weapons and their relevant technologies. Following a brief development of historical themes which continue to affect Chinese military‐related imports today, the study considers the principal contemporary domestic and international determinants which contribute to shaping Chinese arms import policies, and the type of foreign arms acquisitions likely to result from those policies. In analysing past and current security policies, weapons development policies, foreign weapons procurement policies, the study reaches four main conclusions. First, a wide range of problems — including prohibitive cost, political and bureaucratic infighting, absorptive capacities, managerial and administrative roadblocks, and supplier controls — stand in the way of a Chinese military modernization strategy based on foreign procurement. Second, with the exc...

Arms to Go: Chinese Arms Sales to the Third World

Arms to Go: Chinese Arms Sales to the Third World

China-India Rivalry in Nepal: The Clash over Chinese Arms Sales

China-India Rivalry in Nepal: The Clash over Chinese Arms Sales

China-India Rivalry in Nepal: The Clash over Chinese Arms Sales

It is the geographic fate of China and India that those two powerful and dynamic civilizations abut in the region of the world's highest mountains. The ebb and flow of their influence in the tangle of mountains and high plateaus separating Central and East Asia from the Subcontinent can be traced as far back as one cares go. Regarding Nepal, Indian strategic doctrine traces back 1950 when Indian leaders began reconsider their northern frontiers on the basis of the strategic heritage passed on them by British India, which held that the defensive frontiers of India lay in the mountain fastness of the Himalayas. In line with this, a treaty was signed between Nepal and India in July 1950 obligating both governments to inform each other of any serious friction or misunderstanding with any neighboring state likely cause any breach in the friendly relations subsisting between the two governments. Letters were also exchanged at the time providing that: Neither Government shall tolerate any threat the security of the other by a foreign aggressor. To deal with any such threat, the two Governments shall consult with each other and devise effective counter-measures.1 Indian leaders are determined uphold the special relationship between their country and Nepal that is founded on the 1950 treaty. China views the situation in the central Himalayas differently. From Beijing's perspective, Nepal is a neighbor with which the Chinese govern-

Chinese Arms Sales and U.S.-China Military Relations

Chinese Arms Sales and U.S.-China Military Relations

Chinese Arms Sales and U.S.-China Military Relations

Until its suspension in the wake of the Chinese government's violent suppression of the Democracy Movement in June 1989, the nine-year military relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China had been redefined several times. It had moved from the strategic alliance expectations of the initial years, through the complete inactivity of the subsequent two years, to four years of steady development, and then one year of minimum momentum. Each twist and turn was affected by events in the general bilateral relationship. Before the use of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) on June 4, 1989, in Tienanmen Square, the issue that most affected relations was Chinese arms sales abroad. This article contends that China, because of financial, geostrategic, and big power status reasons, will maintain its arms sales, thereby continuing certain interest conflicts with the United States. Both countries, therefore-after a possible resumption of the military relationshipshould be prepared to deal with these circumstances for some time to come. Following a brief review of the history of U.S.-PRC military relations, data on Chinese arms sales are presented. China's motivations for its arms sales are examined in some detail in order to assess the implications for U.S.-China military relations.