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China's effort to establish a nation-wide system of export controls is still in its early stages and has been made more difficult by economic reforms, which have resulted in a de-facto decentralization of authority over many aspects of foreign trade. The organization with the central responsibility for controlling nuclear related exports is the CNNC, described in Section D above. This means that the authorities responsible for building and operating nuclear power plants are also charged with controlling related exports. The possibility exists for a built-in conflict of interest unless certain organizational firewalls can be created and preserved.
Dual use and non-nuclear military exports pose an even more difficult challenge, however, because the factories that manufacture the products subject to control are numerous and widely dispersed. This is particularly true for the chemical industry, but pertains also to the technologies relevant to missile production. An inter-ministerial Leading Group on Military Products, later referred to as the State Administrative Committee on Military Products Trade (SACMPT), was established in 1990 to deal specifically with the exports of conventional weapons and directly related technologies. Composed of representatives from the defense industrial ministries, the Central Military Commission (CMC), the PLA, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), and the COSTIND, it meets regularly to decide on sensitive arms export issues. The staff work for this Committee is handled by a subordinate bureau with the same name. Less sensitive sales are decided at a lower bureaucratic level, depending on the specifics of the case.
Dual-use export control regulations were first embodied in China's Foreign Trade Law which was written by the former Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC), and in MOFTEC's "Rules for the Implementation for the Examination of the Technology Import Contract." A Science and Technology Department within MOFTEC is required to review all import and export licenses involving technology that relate to China's international treaty commitments. This Department often has to coordinate with the relevant industrial ministries and with the General Administration of Customs (GAC). Customs officials are required to inspect sensitive exports and will likely play an increasingly important role in ensuring that Chinese laws relating to international treaty commitments are effectively enforced.
Chinese Arms Control Organizations: A Basic Primer
Originally compiled by:
Wendy Frieman
Director of the Asia Technology Project
Science Applications International Corporation
Revised and updated by:
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
its directors, officers, employees, agents. Copyright © 2007 by
MIIS.
