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China
was the undisputed star of last week's Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) conference in Vienna, leaving Uncle Sam
hiding in the wings.
The US has always been somewhat impatient with international non-proliferation
agreements. Despite a 1992 self-imposed moratorium, in the past six
years the States has conducted 19 nuclear tests, dismissing them as
sub-critical and therefore acceptable.
But the Bush administration has upped the nuclear ante considerably.
It plans another sub-critical nuclear test for 2004, and has authorized
the nation's weapons labs to resume full-on nuclear testing with as little as six-months' notice.
And that's bad news for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The UN-sponsored
organization was set up in 1996 to ban nuclear-test explosions and
to establish a corresponding global monitoring system. But there's
a catch - the treaty can't go into effect until all 44 of the nuclear-capable
countries that joined in 1996 have ratified it, a prospect looking
increasingly unlikely as holdouts point to US intransigence as justification
for their own burgeoning nuclear weapons programs.
Take Iran, which as one of the original signatories, permitted five
monitoring stations to be built on its soil. In January 2002, soon
after the US began withholding funds from the CTBT's on-site inspection
program, Iran began withholding monitoring data from the international
community, thus rendering its stations useless.
With America pulling back from the CTBT, other countries have been
expected to join Iran in withdrawing their support as well. According
to Daryl Kimball of the US-based arms Control Association, "The US
is risking that possibility, and that may indeed be what the US wants."
After all, Armageddon is big business stateside. The US budget for nuclear-weapon activities in fiscal 2004 tops $6 billion,
over half a billion more than in 2003. Expenditures for nuclear-test
readiness alone surged by 39% in the same period, and in a major policy
shift, the Bush administration is poised to seek Congressional authorization
for "usable" nuclear weapons.
So expectations have been understandably low for the CTBT, which to
enter into force must be ratified by the "dirty dozen" holdouts (including
the US, Iran, China, North Korea and Israel, among others) from the
original group of 44 nuclear-capable signatories. Many predicted the
recent conference would produce little more than platitudes and hand-wringing.
Then in walked China.
Rumors had circulated that Beijing may be making a major announcement
at the conference. Its diplomatic flurry in hosting recent six-way
talks over North Korea's nuclear program suggested a newfound sense
of urgency in confronting proliferation, so when China's Ambassador
Yan Zhang assumed the podium, the room fell silent.
Zhang began by issuing China's strong support for the CTBT. With a
veiled reference to North Korea, he cited "the absence of a sense
of security" as a strong motivation for non-proliferation, and then
discreetly railed against the US and other countries that have withdrawn
CTBT funding by demanding every member state pay "in full and in time."
In a jab at the Bush administration's pre-emptive strike policy, Zhang
went on to say members should "unconditionally undertake not to use
or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states."
He concluded by reaffirming the Chinese government's strong commitment
to completing the "ratification procedure ... by an early date."
The impact was profound: cameras flashed and pens raced even though
Zhang had not specifically committed to anything new.
Meanwhile, the US observer to the CTBT conference was unavailable
for comment because the person had failed to even identify him/herself
to anyone.
The upshot: China came off as a responsible, upstanding world citizen
and the US came off as a detached oaf.
Not that the Bush administration minds. Its isolationist policies
were laid out quite clearly in the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), a classified Pentagon document leaked
in January 2002. The review recommends beefing up the nation's nuclear
weapons program as a way of providing "credible military options to
deter a wide range of threats," and goes on to list contingencies
in which a US nuclear strike would be justified; examples include
"an Iraqi attack on Israel or its neighbors, a North Korean attack
on South Korea, or a military confrontation (with China) over the
status of Taiwan."
Pyongyang's response to the NPR was predictable: "Now that the nuclear
lunatics are in office in the White House, we are compelled to examine
all agreements with the U.S." North Korea then struck down the 1994
Agreed Framework commitment to end its nuclear program.
North Korea admitted to having a secret nuclear weapons program last
October, then kicked out UN monitors, and started reprocessing spent
fuel rods, a critical component of nuclear weapons. And at the conclusion
of recent 6-way talks in Beijing, Pyongyang said it might conduct
a nuclear test as early as this month since the US had refused to
sign a non-aggression pact.
But it was exactly this nuclear tit-for-tat escalation that the CTBT
was set up to discourage.
Admittedly, China has hardly been a non-proliferation role model in
the past; its nuclear and missile sales to Iran, Syria, Pakistan and
others were dangerous and irresponsible. But Beijing's apparent newfound
commitment to end the nuclear arms race can be applauded, and if China
actually does ratify the CTBT, pressure will increase on other holdouts
to follow suit.
Hopefully, Uncle Sam won't still be hiding in the wings.
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Heather
Wokusch is a free lance writer. She can be reached via her web
site.
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