China Weapons Sales

U.S. Criticizes China Weapons Sales
Thursday, September 14, 2006

By FOSTER KLUG, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON ? Top U.S. officials on Thursday criticized what they called China's
indiscriminate sale of weapons to rogue countries, suggesting that Beijing's
policies had made the world a more dangerous place.

Peter Rodman, assistant secretary of defense for international security, urged
China to reevaluate its relationship with Iran and North Korea, two countries
with which the United States is locked in standoffs over nuclear weapons
development.

"China's actions seem to us dangerously shortsighted,"Rodman told the U.S.-China
Economic and Security Review Commission, an advisory panel created by
Congress."China's proliferation behavior, past and present, can come back to
haunt it, even placing its own political interests in jeopardy."

The United States, Rodman said, sees"in China a general willingness to transfer
a wide variety of technologies to customers around the world."

He mentioned Iran, Sudan, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Cuba and Venezuela, and also linked
China to North Korea's July missile test launch of seven missiles and to
Hezbollah's use of Chinese-designed cruise missileson an Israeli naval vessel,
also in July.

Rodman said the United States worries that Chinese companies have helped Iran as
it tries to establish a self-sufficient ballistic missile production program.
China wants to build relations with Iran, Rodman said, to secure access to oil
and gas and, potentially, to find ways to control China's restive Muslim
population.



China says it opposes the spread of weapons technology and materials and that it
forbids Chinese companies from transferring such material. And Rodman said that
Beijing has strengthened its nonproliferation efforts by promoting export
control laws and its oversight of those laws, but hasn't done enough.
.

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