Chinese arms junk sails for Pakistan

Theshipment, which left Shanghai on May 26, was near the Malacca Straits yesterday and is being tracked by US officials who say the latest transfer is “one of several troubling signs that China is continuing to ship weapons and related technology to countries of concern.”

“This shows the Chinese are continuing to sell weapons with little regard for their impact on the region. China is acting as a force for destabilization,” the Times quoted an unnamed administration official as saying. But over at the state department, Albright was giving a clean chit to Beijing even as she was bashing India. “What I have found most heartening about the Chinese is that over the last years they have systematically become members of a variety of non-proliferation regimes, rules et cetera,” she said, maintaining that in recent years “they have changed their behavior vis-a-vis Pakistan.”

Albright said China has not been providing any assistance to unsafeguarded Pakistani projects. Islamabad was also able to get some ofits capability from other countries, she added. China is getting to preside over the P5 meeting in Geneva the chairmanship of which moves by rotation. But Indian officials are concerned about how a country which is party to proliferation issues and also Kashmir since China has occupied and exchanged parts of Kashmir with Pakistan can be allowed to sit in judgment.

But the administration is wooing Beijing with such ardour on the eve of President’s Clinton visit later this month that all this lies forgotten. In a White House speech on Wednesday, Clinton invested China with a new role in the affairs of the sub-continent speaking about the “constructive Chinese leadership that will be essential to the long-term resolutions of issues involving South Asia.”

The Clinton administration has also extended a Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to China for another year ironically on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre amid a chorus of protest from the Congress. Clinton will be received on the samesquare where China cracked down on students demonstrators.

The Times meanwhile said US intelligence officials disclosed last week that Pakistan has M-11 missiles from China and may have nuclear warheads for the missiles. It was the first time the presence of the M-11 has been acknowledged, the paper said.

The State Department has previously maintained that there was not enough evidence or that China has not crossed the threshold of the Missile Control Technology Regime (MTCR). The administration used to also argue that the crates containing the missiles lodged at an airbase in Sargodha had not been opened. Under US anti-proliferation laws, deployment of the missile will automatically kick in sanctions against both China and Pakistan.