China’s Proliferation Strategy
Bill Gertz reported yesterday on new evidence (first reported by the London Sunday Times magazine) regarding A.Q. Khan’s nuclear supplier network. The evidence, a handwritten letter from Khan to his Dutch wife, confirms China’s previous material support for Pakistan’s nuclear program. Wrote Khan:
We put a centrifuge plant at Hanzhong, [China]…The Chinese gave us drawings of the nuclear weapon, gave us 50 kg of enriched uranium, gave us 10 tons of UF6 (natural) and 5 tons of UF6 (3 percent).
UF6, or uranium hexaflouride, is a gas used in the production of highly-enriched, weapons-grade plutonium. American officials have long suspected China of involvement in Pakistan’s nuclear program. But this new evidence, if genuine (and why would Khan fabricate such a story in a letter to his wife?), should be eye-opening.
The China-Pakistan relationship dates back to the early 1950s, when Pakistan was one of the first countries to recognize the People’s Republic of China. The long-standing defense relationship was aimed at balancing India and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and remains focused on India today. Indo-Pakistani disputes are well-known, and I have discussed Sino-Indian hostility elsewhere; but suffice it to say, Sino-Indian tensions are simmering, and their border disputes remain very much alive.
Why would China, an NPT signatory, assist its neighbor in developing nuclear weapons? In part, this type of aid would serve to deepen ties and ensure the relationship’s strength. There is a symbolic element: China likely does not share nuclear tech with just anyone who comes asking. More pointedly, I suspect China was happy to support Pakistan’s nuclear program because a nuclear-armed Pakistan complicates India’s strategic environment. It forces India to focus its efforts on deterring two nuclear-weapon states rather than one (China) and somewhat distracts Indian attention from its potentially ill-intentioned northern neighbor. China operated on similar logic when it assisted Iran with its nuclear program in the 1980s and 1990s-a nuclear-armed Iran would complicate American strategy in the Middle East while diverting America’s attention from the Western Pacific.
This may be sound strategic thinking (or it may be entirely destabilizing), but it demonstrates that China is willing to play fast and loose with nuclear material, technology, and know-how. This makes for a very dangerous game. Pakistan is not the model of a stable state, and there is now much hand-wringing about the potential for its weapons to fall into the hands of extremists should the government collapse. Moreover, Khan’s letter states that nuclear-weapons technology supplied by China was later sold to North Korea, a development with which Beijing could not have been happy. A nuclear-armed DPRK raises the specter of South Korean and, even more worrying to China, Japanese nuclear weapons programs.
As China (not to mention the rest of us) reaps what it has sowed, Beijing has hopefully learned its lesson. It turns out that nuclear proliferation as a tool of strategy is not one whose strategic repercussions can be easily controlled.
There are a couple lessons here for Americans as well. First, China has not yet proved itself as the responsible power that its leaders (as well as some American leaders) claim it to be. Second, China has continued to operate based on a brand of realpolitik that many in the current U.S. administration seem to believe has been consigned to the dustbin of history. One hopes American strategists haven’t forgotten how to play these games.
Michael Mazza is a research assistant at the American Enterprise Institute.
