SUNS  4323 Friday 13 November 1998

United Nations, Nov 11 (IPS/Thalif Deen) -- The United States and China are embroiled in a fresh political dispute over the inclusion of Taiwan in the United Nations Arms Register, which records arms sales by UN member states and was established in 1992 as an annual exercise in military transparency.

The Chinese government last week pulled out of the Register under protest and has vowed not to return - unless the US keeps Taiwan out of the arms buyers list that it submits each year to the United Nations.

With the withdrawal of China, only four of the world's five major arms suppliers are still participating in the Register - the United States, Britain, France and Russia. All these countries also have veto powers as permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. The Register is expected only to record arms transfers between sovereign nation states, Li Changhe of China insisted at the U.N.
Committee on Disarmament and International Security. Taiwan has no place in the Register because it is only a province of China, he said.

The inclusion of Taiwan he argues, not only is "a violation of China's sovereignty but also interference in the internal affairs of a member state." The Register has been "politicised," he adds.

Since 1996, the United States has listed all of its arms sales to Taiwan as part of its annual declaration to the Arms Register. In every instance, the Chinese government has protested, but the US insists on including all its weapons transfers to Taipei. In the latest 1998 Arms Register released last week, the U.S. has once again listed its arms transfers to Taiwan: 30 M-60 battle tanks, 60 F-16 fighter planes, nine AH-1 combat helicopters and 248 AIM-7 missiles and missile launchers,
all of them delivered to Taiwan during 1997.

On average, about 95 countries volunteer to participate in the Register annually; in 1996, only 81 countries participated as against 96 in 1997.

This year's Register carries for the first time all of the weapons systems currently in service in 28 countries, including the US, Britain, France, Australia, Germany, Canada, Italy, Japan, the
Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. The only two Third World nations to go public with their military inventories are Brazil and Venezuela.

The Register has been criticised by several member states because it is confined only to seven categories of weapons systems: combat aircraft, attack helicopters, battle tanks, warships, missiles and missile launchers, armoured combat vehicles and large-calibre artillery systems.

Maged Abdelaziz of Egypt says that only an expanded Register can serve the cause of military transparency. All those states that possess more than the seven categories of weapons systems - especially nuclear, biological and chemical weapons - are not required to record that information. He says he regrets the apparent lack of commitment by the international community to include weapons of mass destruction in the Register.

Christine Kucia of the Washington-based British American Security Information Council says the 1998 Arms Register is a distinct improvement over the 1997 document. Despite the large number of
respondents, however, the Register still remains static, she says. "Expanded definitions made the Register a more useful tool for monitoring arms transfers."

For the first time, the Register includes information on military holdings and procurement through national production, as recommended by a UN Group of Governmental Experts in 1997.

"Including this section expands the Register's traditional reporting in order to paint a better picture of the world's conventional weapons arsenals," Kucia says.

While a few of the world's largest arms suppliers choose to disclose their military holdings fully (Britain, Canada and Germany), most opt to disclose only aggregate numbers in each of the Register's seven reporting categories, or have refused to report at all, she notes.

"Limited and non-reports undermine the value of the Register as a tool for monitoring arms transfers, and do not set adequate precedent for other transfer states," she says. Kucia also points out that the Registers continues to focus only on "heavy" conventional weapons transfers and does not report on the trafficking in small arms and light weapons.

"Excluding this category of weapons from the report means that the Register does not provide a complete picture of the arms trade and its impact in all armed conflicts," she says.

Kucia complains about the voluntary nature of the Register. "As long as the Register remains a voluntary instrument for reporting transfers, the world will never know the full breadth, cost and impact of the global arms trade."


Correction: On page 2 of SUNS 4322, third para, should read ... Indian Ocean island state of Mauritius (instead of Fiji)