Asien — China’s National Defense in 2008

The Chi­nese gov­ern­ment has always attached impor­tance to and been sup­port­ive of inter­na­tion­al efforts in the field of arms con­trol, dis­ar­ma­ment and non-pro­lif­er­a­tion. Chi­na has tak­en con­crete mea­sures to faith­ful­ly ful­fill its rel­e­vant inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions. Chi­na is com­mit­ted to, along with the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, con­sol­i­dat­ing and strength­en­ing the exist­ing inter­na­tion­al arms con­trol, dis­ar­ma­ment and non-pro­lif­er­a­tion mech­a­nisms pur­suant to the pur­pos­es and prin­ci­ples of the Char­ter of the Unit­ed Nations and oth­er uni­ver­sal­ly rec­og­nized norms gov­ern­ing inter­na­tion­al rela­tions, and to the preser­va­tion of inter­na­tion­al strate­gic sta­bil­i­ty and pro­mo­tion of the com­mon secu­ri­ty of all countries. 

Nuclear Dis­ar­ma­ment
Chi­na holds that all nuclear-weapon states should make an unequiv­o­cal com­mit­ment to the thor­ough destruc­tion of nuclear weapons, under­take to stop research into and devel­op­ment of new types of nuclear weapons, and reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their nation­al secu­ri­ty pol­i­cy. The two coun­tries pos­sess­ing the largest nuclear arse­nals bear spe­cial and pri­ma­ry respon­si­bil­i­ty for nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment. They should earnest­ly com­ply with the rel­e­vant agree­ments already con­clud­ed, and fur­ther dras­ti­cal­ly reduce their nuclear arse­nals in a ver­i­fi­able and irre­versible man­ner, so as to cre­ate the nec­es­sary con­di­tions for the par­tic­i­pa­tion of oth­er nuclear-weapon states in the process of nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment.
Chi­na sup­ports the ear­ly entry into force of the Com­pre­hen­sive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, and will con­tin­ue to hon­or its mora­to­ri­um com­mit­ment on nuclear test­ing. Chi­na sup­ports the prepara­to­ry work for the entry into force of the Treaty by the Prepara­to­ry Com­mis­sion of the Com­pre­hen­sive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Orga­ni­za­tion, and has con­tributed to the estab­lish­ment of the Inter­na­tion­al Mon­i­tor­ing Sys­tem (IMS).

Chi­na has always stayed true to its com­mit­ments that it will not be the first to use nuclear weapons at any time and in any cir­cum­stances, and will uncon­di­tion­al­ly not use or threat­en to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states or in nuclear-weapon-free zones. Chi­na calls upon oth­er nuclear-weapon states to make the same com­mit­ments and con­clude an inter­na­tion­al legal instru­ment in this regard. Chi­na has already signed all rel­e­vant pro­to­cols which have been opened for sig­na­ture of var­i­ous nuclear-weapon-free zone treaties, and has reached agree­ment with the ASEAN on rel­e­vant issues of the Pro­to­col of the Treaty on the South­east Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone. Chi­na wel­comes the Treaty on a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Cen­tral Asia signed by the five Cen­tral Asian countries. 

Chi­na val­ues the role of the Con­fer­ence on Dis­ar­ma­ment (CD) in Gene­va, and sup­ports efforts in the CD to reach a com­pre­hen­sive and bal­anced pro­gram of work, so as to enable the CD to start sub­stan­tial work on such issues as the Fis­sile Mate­r­i­al Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), pre­ven­tion of an arms race in out­er space, nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment and secu­ri­ty assur­ance to non-nuclear-weapon states. 

Chi­na main­tains that the glob­al mis­sile defense pro­gram will be detri­men­tal to strate­gic bal­ance and sta­bil­i­ty, under­mine inter­na­tion­al and region­al secu­ri­ty, and have a neg­a­tive impact on the process of nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment. Chi­na pays close atten­tion to this issue. 

Pro­hi­bi­tion of Bio­log­i­cal and Chem­i­cal Weapons
Chi­na observes in good faith its oblig­a­tions under the Bio­log­i­cal Weapons Con­ven­tion (BWC), and sup­ports the mul­ti­lat­er­al efforts aimed at strength­en­ing the effec­tive­ness of the Con­ven­tion. Chi­na has active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in the meet­ings of the par­ties to the Con­ven­tion and the meet­ings of experts in a prag­mat­ic man­ner. Chi­na has already estab­lished a com­pre­hen­sive leg­is­la­tion sys­tem for the imple­men­ta­tion of the Con­ven­tion, set up a nation­al imple­men­ta­tion focal point, and sub­mit­ted its dec­la­ra­tions regard­ing con­fi­dence-build­ing mea­sures to the Imple­men­ta­tion Sup­port Unit of the Con­ven­tion in a time­ly fash­ion. Chi­na has also strength­ened bio-safe­ty, bio-secu­ri­ty and dis­ease sur­veil­lance, and active­ly car­ried out relat­ed inter­na­tion­al exchanges and cooperation. 

Chi­na earnest­ly ful­fils its oblig­a­tions under the Chem­i­cal Weapons Con­ven­tion (CWC) by set­ting up imple­men­ta­tion offices at both cen­tral and local lev­els, sub­mit­ting time­ly and com­plete annu­al dec­la­ra­tions, sub­se­quent dec­la­ra­tions regard­ing new­ly dis­cov­ered chem­i­cal weapons aban­doned by Japan in Chi­na and infor­ma­tion on the nation­al pro­tec­tion pro­gram. Chi­na has received more than 170 on-site inspec­tions by the Orga­ni­za­tion for the Pro­hi­bi­tion of Chem­i­cal Weapons (OPCW). The Ana­lyt­i­cal Chem­istry Research Lab­o­ra­to­ry of the Insti­tute of Chem­i­cal Defense became the first OPCW-des­ig­nat­ed lab­o­ra­to­ry in Chi­na in 1998, fol­lowed by the Tox­i­cant Analy­sis Lab­o­ra­to­ry of the Acad­e­my of Mil­i­tary Med­ical Sci­ences, which became an OPCW-des­ig­nat­ed lab­o­ra­to­ry in 2007. In May 2008 Chi­na and the OPCW joint­ly held a train­ing course on pro­tec­tion and assis­tance in Bei­jing. With a view to accel­er­at­ing the destruc­tion of chem­i­cal weapons aban­doned by Japan in Chi­na, Chi­na has assist­ed Japan in car­ry­ing out more than 100 on-site inves­ti­ga­tions, and exca­vat­ed more than 40,000 items of chem­i­cal weapons aban­doned by Japan. Chi­na urges Japan to earnest­ly imple­ment its oblig­a­tions under the Con­ven­tion, and start the actu­al destruc­tion of chem­i­cal weapons aban­doned by Japan in Chi­na as soon as possible. 

Source:
Infor­ma­tion Office of the State Coun­cil of the People’s Repub­lic of China