Taking the risk of mass destruction seriously
Asia's leading industrial and trading economies are tightening their export control rules to prevent materials that could be used to make weapons of mass destruction from reaching North Korea and other potential proliferators, including terrorists. Many of the same economies - among them Japan, China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand - have also agreed to co-operate in preventing the same materials being procured in one country but exported through another to disguise the ultimate destination.
In one of the latest examples, Japanese police this month arrested a Japanese businessman and North Korean female resident of Japan on suspicion of illegally trying to export to North Korea equipment that could be used to enrich uranium for making nuclear weapons. The equipment - an inverter for an industrial washing machine - was sent to China after Japanese authorities rejected the shipper's export application. China reportedly blocked the shipment and returned it to Japan in December. Japanese investigators say the inverter can stabilise the frequency of electricity in a gas centrifuge for making highly enriched uranium.
Much of the equipment and materials in North Korea's programmes for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons have found their way there because of lax controls in Japan, China and other regional economies. The overdue crackdown in Asia is being prompted by pressure from the United States, as well as by a growing recognition among Asian governments that the security and stability of the region is threatened by unchecked proliferation.
India is the latest Asian power to join the crackdown. On January 12, US President George W. Bush unveiled a bilateral agreement that will greatly increase technology co-operation between the two. The US will allow exports of sensitive civil nuclear and civilian space equipment. In return, India will strengthen its own controls on the export of such equipment and technology.
China has been gradually tightening its export controls on chemical, biological and nuclear materials and related equipment in recent years. It has done the same for missiles and related components. Beijing says its rules are now consistent with international norms and include lists of proliferation-sensitive items, licenses for such exports, and certification that end-users will not divert the items to military purposes. China's rules have a 'catch-all' provision which puts the onus on exporters by insisting that they apply for export permits if they know, or should know, that the goods involved pose a risk of proliferation.
Japan convened an export control policy meeting of eight Asian states in Tokyo last October. Senior officials from the US, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Australia, as well as Japan, took part. They agreed to tighten national controls over exports of materials that could be used to develop weapons of mass destruction and intensify exchange of timely intelligence about suspected trafficking in such items. They also agreed to set up a system through which they can inform each other about suspected shipments to North Korea via third countries.
It is the first time that an arrangement for multilateral co-operation in export control over strategically sensitive goods has been put in place in Asia. The collaboration between Japan and China in blocking the inverter shipment to North Korea appears to have been one of the first practical results of the agreement.
But it is not the first time that China is known to have acted to prevent its erstwhile communist ally from getting such material. US Secretary of State Colin Powell disclosed in November that Beijing had co-operated with the US to block chemicals leaving China for North Korea. This was the first reported case of such co-operation in an arms control area that has been a source of chronic tension. The CIA, for example, told the US Congress in January last year that North Korea continued to procure raw materials and components for its ballistic missile programmes from various foreign sources, especially through North Korean firms based in China.
Still, the US remains worried that China is not effectively enforcing its export laws, despite enacting some good legislation. A CIA report in November acknowledged the improvement in China's non-proliferation policies but cautioned that the behaviour of Chinese companies remained of great concern. The report cited possible Chinese co-operation with Iranian and Pakistani nuclear programmes; Iran's chemical weapons programme; and missile programmes in Iran, Pakistan, Libya and North Korea.
Michael Richardson, a former Asia editor of the International Herald Tribune, is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. The views expressed in this article are those of the author