RAND Corporation released a massive new report (pdf) on China's WMD-related export controls earlier this week. I have yet to plow through this 130-odd page monograph, so for now here's how the accompanying press release sums it up:
China continues to lack the resources to fully and adequately implement its numerous laws and regulations designed to control exports of sensitive goods and technologies that could be used to help create chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons, according to a RAND Corporation study issued today.
While China has made much progress, it needs to do more to enforce its own controls on exports that could help other nations or organizations develop weapons of mass destruction, the report says.
The controls were adopted gradually over the last several years as Chinese leaders recognized the importance of WMD nonproliferation to global security.
"In the past five years, China has erected a structure that has a strong legal basis to control exports of goods that can be used for making weapons of mass destruction, but it hasn't devoted the necessary financial or political resources to make these controls effective," said Evan Medeiros, the RAND researcher who conducted the study. "This is a persistent and glaring weakness."
If this summary is accurate, the report would be consistent with the prevailing US Government view that China's progress in enacting export control legislation has yet to be matched with serious enforcement of those new laws.
An alternative view is that the study is "irresponsible and goes against the facts." At least that's what China's Foreign Ministry has already concluded.
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