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14 April 1999
Moscow
According to the agreement reached between Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China and the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation on 25 February 1999, Mr. Wang Guangya, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China and Mr. G. E. Mamedov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation held consultations on the question of strategic stability in Moscow on 14 April 1999. Military and diplomatic experts from both sides participated in the consultations.
The Chinese and Russian sides focused their discussion on the recent developments concerning the ABM Treaty. According to the understanding enshrined in the Joint Statement entitled "Chinese-Russian Relations at the Turn of the 21st Century" the two sides maintain that to preserve and strengthen the ABM Treaty is of critical importance, and that the ABM Treaty was and remains the cornerstone for maintaining global strategic stability. Such a mutual understanding constitutes the basis of the two sides in their discussion of this question.
The Chinese and Russian sides express grave concern over the serious threat undermining the ABM Treaty, currently emerged as a result of the announcement by the US of its ballistic missile defense programs. To implement such programs constitutes a violation of the basic obligations provided for in the ABM Treaty, i.e. not to deploy ABM systems for a defense of the territory of its territory and not to provide a base for such a defense.
The two sides maintain that to undermine or violate ABM Treaty will result in a series of negative consequences. It will give rise to new contributing factors at global and regional levels to a destabilized international situation. It will provide for resumption of arms race, and place additional obstacles to disarmament process.
The two sides also maintain that, under the current situation, it is imperative that the international community be enabled to realize fully the consequences flowing from any attempt to undermine the ABM Treaty.
The PRC, though not a party to the ABM Treaty, expresses its support to Russia's endeavor in preventing any attempt to undermine or circumvent the ABM Treaty based on its consistent interest in maintaining strategic stability and international security. Russia, for its part, vigorously supports China in its efforts to enhance international and regional stability. The two sides are of the view that to implement programs aimed deploying missile systems by a number of countries in the Asia and Pacific region may aggravate the tension in the hot spots of conflict in the region, to which they express their concern.
The Chinese and Russian sides state their readiness to continue their consultations and cooperation on the question of preserving the ABM Treaty and related issues in the light of emerging developments.
This
material is produced independently for NTI by the James Martin
Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of
International Studies and does not necessarily reflect the
opinions of and has not been independently verified by NTI or
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MIIS.
