Global arms proliferation continues to be a key concern for the United States, particularly the export role of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Although China experienced a significant decline in its arms exports in the 1990s (down from the boom times of the 1980s), the PRC provides a significant array of lethal weapons and sensitive defense technologies to states around the world. These exports provide an invaluable means by which to assess the progress and performance of China's military-industrial complex. Moreover, these products may present the very systems and technological know-how that the United States and allied forces will encounter in a future conflict.

It has been nearly 10 years since a comprehensive study has been undertaken to fully assess the trends, processes, and implications of China's arms exports. For a number of reasons the time is ripe for the present study to take up this subject. First, over the course of the 1990s, questions of Chinese arms proliferation emerged as a central problem in U.S.-China relations. Second, in spite of this valid continuing concern for U.S. interests, encouraging overall trends in Chinese arms exports principles and practices have resulted in more concrete Chinese unilateral, bilateral, and international commitments to stem its transfers of weapons and technologies on the one hand, coupled with market forces causing a steep overall decline in its major conventional weapons exports over the past 10 years on the other. Third, far more data, information, and documentation is available today from China on a host of questions relevant to this issue through access to officials, newspapers, policy documents, published regulations, and official statements. These sources-some of which are provided to a wider audience for the first time in this study-offer new insights into the players and process involved in Chinese arms export policy, China's military-technical relationships abroad, the internal bureaucratic and institutional pressures bearing on arms transfers, the strengths and weaknesses of China's export control system, and the extent to which Chinese decisionmakers have embraced international nonproliferation principles. Fourth, since late 1997 and early 1998, the Chinese arms production and arms export system has undergone a sweeping reorganization and restructuring process. While the basic outlines of this shake-up are discernible, its implications for future arms exports are less clear and require careful analysis. Finally, the upshot of these trends points to enduring and legitimate U.S. concerns over Chinese arms exports and proliferation activities. At the very least, this issue will remain a contentious one and will impede progress in the broader effort of the two countries to stabilize their relationship. In addition, in spite of a relative decline in its arms exports overall, China continues to provide sensitive weapons and technology to a range of recipients Washington views with concern: Iran, Myanmar (Burma), North Korea, Pakistan, and others. There is little doubt that China will employ these types of transfers as a form of leverage in its discussions with U.S. officials on other issues related to areas of concern for China, such as U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. More importantly, it remains highly likely that U.S. security interests and military forces overseas will continue to confront-both diplomatically and militarily-the challenge posed by Chinese weapons in sensitive regions across Asia and the Middle East. As a result, it is imperative to gain greater insight into Chinese arms export policies, players, and processes and their implications for U.S. interests. This study tackles these issues in two principal parts. First, in order to set the context of the study, we assess past, present, and future quantitative and qualitative trends in Chinese conventional arms transfers. The second part of the study examines Chinese arms export policy, players, and process in turn. Charts and documents attached as appendices further supplement the work of the study.

This volume explores how China is adapting to international norms and practices while still giving primacy to its national interests. It examines China's strategic behaviour on the world stage, particularly in its relationships with major powers and Asian neighbours.

This book stands as a rebuke to any who would attempt to forward simplistic interpretations of China's rise. In place of parsimonious arguments, or an endorsement of any singular set of images (whether pacific or confrontational), it repeatedly calls attention to the remarkable complexity of China's emerging international profile. More specifically, the leading Chinese and American scholars working in the fields of Chinese foreign policy, international political economy, and national security, who contributed to this volume argue that while China appears to be entering a new era in its relationship with the outside world, such a development encompasses disparate, even contradictory, policies, and, as a result, there is a great deal of fluidity within China's place in world politics.

This new book addresses three key issues: What has changed in Chinese civil-military relations? What can account for changes? And what are the implications for Chinese security policy and strategic behaviour? It tackles these questions by sharply assessing civil-military dynamics in elite politics; such dynamics in national security and arms control policy; relations between commanders and political commissars; relations between the PLA and society; civil-military dynamics regarding defence economics and logistics; and such dynamics regarding dual-use technologies and defence industry. These analyses build into the central theme that the emphasis of Chinese civil-military relations is shifting from politics to military tasks. This is an extremely important new development by a nation many predict to become a super power in the twenty-first century. This is therefore essential reading for all students and scholars of strategic and security studies, Chinese studies and international relations.

The book considers the main arms exporting countries, including China, Russia, and the US, as well as several European states, and the policies each employs in deciding advanced weapons sales to key regions of the world. It examines whether such sales are inherently stabilising or de-stabilising regarding regional security. Regions reviewed in detail include the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific. Combat aircraft sales are a focus for the volume given both their practical and symbolic importance. The volume focuses on the behaviour and policies of the main arms exporting nations since the end of the Cold War, shifts in their arms export policies, and the tensions that can emerge within or between countries over proposed arms sales. It also considers the impact of countries that were previously only recipients of advanced weapons moving to develop their own defence industrial base.

The spread of weapons of mass destruction poses one of the greatest threats to international peace and security in modern times--the specter of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons looms over relations among many countries. The September 11 tragedy and other terrorist attacks have been painful warnings about gaps in nonproliferation policies and regimes, specifically with regard to nonstate actors. In this volume, experts in nonproliferation studies examine challenges faced by the international community and propose directions for national and international policy making and lawmaking. The first group of essays outlines the primary threats posed by WMD proliferation and terrorism. Essays in the second section analyze existing treaties and other normative regimes, including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Chemical Weapons and Biological Weapons Conventions, and recommend ways to address the challenges to their effectiveness. Essays in part three examine the shift some states have made away from nonproliferation treaties and regimes toward more forceful and proactive policies of counterproliferation, such as the Proliferation Security Initiative, which coordinates efforts to search and seize suspect shipments of WMD-related materials.

China is frequently described as a threat to regional and global stability and its rapidly rising demand for imported energy is seens as one cause of this threat. This book shows that domestic politics and foreign policy have both played a part in China's recent major energy policy decisions. However, China's increasing involvement in the global energy markets can be seen as an opportunity to enhance cooperation and interdependence rather than as a threat.