China and International Nuclear Weapons Proliferation

Strategic Assistance

Henrik Stålhane Hiim

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138494596
• eBook ISBN: 9781351026048
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Chinese History
• Index: History

This book explores China's approach to the nuclear programs in Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea.

A major power with access to nuclear technology, China has a significant impact on international nuclear weapons proliferation, but its attitude towards the spread of the bomb has been inconsistent. China's mixed record raises a broader question: why, when and how do states support potential nuclear proliferators? This book develops a framework for analyzing such questions, by putting forth three factors that are likely to determine a state's policy: (1) the risk of changes in the nuclear status or military doctrines of competitors; (2) the recipient's status and strategic value; and (3) the extent of pressure from third parties to halt nuclear assistance. It then demonstrates how these factors help explain China's policies towards Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea. Overall, the book finds that China has been a selective and strategic supporter of nuclear proliferators. While nuclear proliferation is a security challenge to China in some settings, in others, it wants to help its friends build the bomb.

This book will be of much interest to students of international security, nuclear proliferation, Chinese foreign policy and International Relations in general.

1China and international nuclear weapons proliferation

In the second nuclear age, Asia is at the center. Whereas superpower confrontation in Europe defined the first nuclear age, the new atomic era is characterized by the rise of new regional nuclear powers, located in Asia.¹ In Northeast Asia, North Korea’s nuclear brinkmanship created war scares in the early 1990s and the early 2000s, and may yet lead to armed conflict. In the Persian Gulf, the controversy over Iran’s nuclear program has threatened to unleash a major regional war for more than a decade. In South Asia, the bitter and historically intensely violent rivalry between India and Pakistan is unfolding under a nuclear shadow. The new Asian nuclear powers have small and potentially less safe and secure arsenals. In an era where the risk of nuclear exchange between the U.S. and Russia has decreased, there is real danger of an atomic conflict in Asia.

China has had a determining impact on this new nuclear landscape. Its influence springs from two dimensions. First, China is a major source of nuclear technology, and a crucial supplier of ballistic missiles, which is most states’ preferred means of delivery for nuclear weapons. Beijing has provided both Iran and Pakistan with significant material assistance, easing their path to the bomb. Second, China is a major player in efforts to manage nonproliferation crises in the Security Council, as well as multilateral negotiations. Moreover, China has strong diplomatic, economic, and military ties to several confirmed and suspected proliferators, including Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran.

China’s approach to nuclear proliferation has been and remains controversial. Several scholars and practitioners portray Beijing as a blatant proliferator that is willing to provide nuclear weapons technology to a range of unsavory regimes. For example, Princeton professor and former U.S. Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs Aaron Friedberg indicates that China supports the spread of nuclear weapons and continues to back proliferators. Friedberg argues that China’s acceptance of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is “partial, tentative, evanescent, and likely to evaporate as its power grows.”² In a recent book, Michael Pillsbury claims that “part of China’s goal is to decrease the influence of world powers such as the United States by proliferating weapons to autocratic and often anti-Western governments.”³ Along similar lines, Mohan Malik argues that China has supported proliferators in Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan, and claims “their deeds have not been matched by their words.”⁴ Gordon Chang argues that China (along with Russia) “threaten[s] the world” through reckless support of nuclearizing states.⁵

Other analysts are more sanguine, arguing that China’s approach to nuclear proliferation has changed significantly. These observers see China’s embrace of, and integration into, the nonproliferation regime as one of its greatest foreign policy changes of recent decades. They highlight how China joined the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1992, the Zangger Committee in 1997 and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in 2004, and point to a major reduction in Chinese exports of nuclear and missile-related technologies. Although they acknowledge glitches in Chinese performance, they argue that Beijing now sees value in upholding nonproliferation norms, and that the spread of nuclear weapons is a common threat to the U.S. and China. For example, Michael Swaine claims that there has been a “growing recognition of the threats posed by the proliferation of WMD.”⁶ Similarly, in the most thorough review of Chinese nonproliferation policy to date, Evan S. Medeiros argues that

China has become a strong proponent of global efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and related goods and technologies. Chinese leaders appear to have internalized the global norm against proliferation; that is, they have come to believe that nuclear nonproliferation contributes directly to the nation’s security interest.⁷

The puzzle – China’s mixed approach to proliferators

The current debate about China and nuclear weapons proliferation has shortcomings. Most importantly, both skeptical and sanguine observers tend to overlook that China’s track record has been mixed, with the forms and intensity of its support to proliferators varying substantially. In the Pakistan case, Beijing knowingly supported the nuclear weapons development of another state, providing it with crucial technology and materials. This support continued in the form of missile transfers well into the 2000s. In other cases, such as Iran, China was much more circumspect, and provided more limited dual-use nuclear technology and missile support. Moreover, it halted its nuclear assistance by the late 1990s. In the North Korean case, China seemingly provided little material assistance despite the alliance and the close, if often fraught, ties between the two states throughout the Cold War. It has, however, kept a protecting hand over the North Korean regime through several crises.

Both skeptical and sanguine observers have failed to adequately explain the reasons for this mixed track record. Skeptics, on the one hand, tend to falsely see all forms of Chinese support as indicative of a desire to help rogue states develop the bomb. Sanguine observers, on the other hand, have overstated China’s support of nuclear nonproliferation norms. More generally, they have put too much emphasis on the adjustments in China’s approach to nuclear proliferation, and overlooked the significant continuities.

China’s mixed track record gives rise to two questions that apply not only to China, but also to other nuclear weapons states more generally:

1Why and when do nuclear-armed states support potential nuclear proliferators?

2How do they provide such support?

This book examines these questions. I develop a framework to identify the different forms of support a state may provide to nuclear proliferators, which include direct weapons support, limited nuclear support, and sheltering. The framework highlights how three sets of variables are likely to determine a state’s policy: (1) the risk of cascade effects and unfavorable changes in the military doctrines of its competitors; (2) the recipient state’s status, including its alignment, strategic value, vulnerability, and reliability; and (3) the extent of pressure from influential third parties. I apply this framework to explain the evolution of China’s approach to Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea’s nuclear programs.

The key argument of this book is that China has been a selective, calculating and strategic supporter of nuclear proliferators. Despite the claims of some alarmists, China has not uncritically provided nuclear weapons technology to the highest bidder or to any and all rogue regimes. But in contrast with the more sanguine voices’ claims of ideational change, Beijing’s approach to the spread of nuclear weapons is based firmly on realpolitik. China does not uniformly regard proliferation as a threat, and continues to assist nuclear proliferators when it believes that it serves its broader security interests. Moreover, China uses proliferation policy as a bargaining chip vis-à-vis the United States. To Beijing, nuclear proliferation is a security challenge in some settings. In others, it wants to help its friends build the bomb. As I will outline in more detail, these findings may not only tell us how China will approach nuclear proliferation challenges in the future, but may also provide broader insight into the evolution of China’s foreign policy and its future direction as a great power.

Current research on nuclear proliferation and China

This study addresses two broad sets of policy and academic debate: (1) the general supply-side literature on nuclear proliferation, and (2) the literature on Chinese foreign policy. These sets of literature leave important unanswered questions about proliferation in general, and China’s approach in particular.

The supply-side literature

In the literature on nuclear weapons proliferation, there has traditionally been an overwhelming focus on what is often termed the demand-side of proliferation – that is, why states seek to develop nuclear weapons.⁸ Until recently, the literature has left the supply-side of the proliferation puzzle largely unexamined. As Scott Sagan highlights, scholars have traditionally assumed that nuclear support is driven either by profit motives or a failure to see that such support may lead to weapons proliferation.⁹ There has not, however, been a theory of nuclear supply.

The literature has also largely failed to address what determines how a state provides assistance to a proliferator. This is puzzling, given that support comes in very different forms. At one end, there are examples of states providing extensive material support to the weapons program of other states. Soviet support to China during the Cold War (before the Sino-Soviet split during the late 1950s) is a case in point.¹⁰ In other cases, states have offered more limited dual-use support to potential proliferators, as in the case of Russia’s nuclear cooperation with Iran, or U.S. aid to Japan.¹¹ Moreover, there are examples of states being officially opposed to the nuclear program of another state, yet offering diplomatic and economic protection that shelters the proliferator, thereby allowing it to continue its nuclear endeavors. U.S. policies towards Israel’s nuclear program, as well as the Pakistani nuclear program during the 1980s, are examples of this.¹² In short, there is a range of observed forms of behavior that may be classified as support for a potential proliferator.

In recent years there have been two major attempts to address the supply-side conundrum. Matthew Kroenig argues that states provide sensitive nuclear assistance to other states for strategic reasons, as under certain circumstances it may be beneficial to help other states develop the bomb.¹³ In a study of civilian nuclear assistance, Matthew Fuhrmann has argued that politico-strategic motives drive a state’s policies.¹⁴ Kroenig’s work in particular is pioneering: He opened up an important field of research that was long neglected. Kroenig argues that states are more likely to provide sensitive nuclear assistance to another state when they (1) have a common enemy, (2) are independent of a superpower for their security, and (3) are not able to project power over the recipient. In Chapter 2, I build on some of his observations when assessing why the spreading of nuclear technology in some instances may be in the interests of a potential supplier state.

Despite this, Kroenig’s (and Fuhrmann’s) work, and particularly their methodology – the use of statistical methods – has been subject to criticism. Much of this criticism revolves around two main questions: First, whether individual cases are accurately coded, and if the coding rules used in statistical studies can capture the complexity of individual cases. Second, whether the causal mechanisms suggested can actually explain individual cases – in other words, whether the studies have internal validity.¹⁵

Both of these questions are highly relevant in the context of this study, and I argue that Kroenig’s work on supply-side proliferation suffers from shortfalls on both accounts. In terms of coding, Kroenig defines his dependent variable – “sensitive nuclear assistance” – in a way that leads to coding problems. Cases that are very different in nature all appear as “sensitive nuclear assistance.” Some of these cases undoubtedly constitute willful weapons support or “exporting the bomb” – which is the phenomenon he intends to study – but others do not.¹⁶ For example, Chinese cooperation with Pakistan, Iran, and Algeria are all coded as cases of sensitive nuclear assistance.¹⁷ As I will detail, the cases are very different: While China had extensive, long-running weapons cooperation with Pakistan, its nuclear assistance to Iran was much more modest, and its transfers of a very different character. Its cooperation with Algeria was even more limited.¹⁸ In short, while China’s support for Pakistan was a case of exporting the bomb, Chinese support of Iran and Algeria were not.

In terms of causal mechanisms, the case studies in this book show that Kroenig’s theory cannot adequately explain China’s approach to nuclear proliferation. First, his theory cannot account for Chinese restraint, and changes in its policies. As I will outline in Chapter 4, China cut its nuclear ties to Iran in 1997, mostly because of U.S. pressure. More generally, China could have supported U.S. adversaries such as Syria or Libya after the end of the Cold War, but refrained from such policies.¹⁹ This is because the theory does not capture the important role that pressure from the U.S. and other regional stakeholders has played in shaping China’s policies. Relatedly, his framework does not capture how differences in the strategic value of the recipient have played a major role in determining China’s policy. Both of these fa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Seriestitle
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• List of abbreviations
• 1 China and international nuclear weapons proliferation
• 2 Why support nuclear proliferators?
• 3 Friends with nuclear benefits: China and the Pakistani bomb
• 4 Circumspect supporter: China and the Iranian nuclear program
• 5 Give them shelter: China and North Korean nuclear brinkmanship
• 6 Extending the argument: minor and non-Chinese cases of nuclear assistance
• 7 Conclusion: a rising China and the future of nuclear proliferation
• References
• Index