As mentioned before, the Strategic Partnership necessarily had an impact on cooperation on non-proliferation between China and the EU, since for all purposes it upgraded their cooperation to
69 Shambaugh, D. (2005) The New Strategic Triangle: U.S. and European Reactions to China’s Rise, The Washington Quarterly, Summer 2005
70 http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/ec/127965.pdf accessed May 30, 2012 71 China, EU to launch talks on framework agreement, Xinhua (2006, September 9)
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-09/09/content_5071109.htm accessed May 28, 2012
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include security matters.
As mentioned before, further cooperation with the EU, and its 'civilian power' bonafides, was a way for China to legitimate its self-proclaimed 'peaceful rise' narrative and potential as a 'responsible stakeholder' in the international system. Establishing a strategic partnership with the EU would enhance China's international status, while also signifying the debut of a more
multilateral/multipolar (multilateral for the EU, multipolar for China) world order. Rather than European influence in itself, this potential may be what leads China to cooperate in the field of non-proliferation – that and the prospects of lifting the arms embargo and attaining Market Economy Status at last.
Becoming more and more important in the international system – as it came closer to great power status – China's position on certain strategic issues came to be more reflecting of the policies of other powers, non-proliferation being a case in point. China's position on non-proliferation has changed drastically in the last twenty years, starting with its accession to the NPT in 1992, after the other nuclear power still holding out, France, announced its accession to the treaty in 1991.
Since then China has appeared to agree with the consensus amongst legal nuclear powers – and most countries – on the benefits of non-proliferation, and has seemingly become more prudent in exporting these technologies and materials in the last decade. In 2002 and 2003, China passed several laws concerning export controls and non-proliferation, although experts claim that its export controls are still weak.
In December 2003, the EU passed its first ‘Security Strategy Report', confirming China as one of its major strategic partners. The results of this report were that the EU and China agreed to cooperate on several different global issues, which included environmental changes, money
laundering, organized crimes and drug trafficking, but more importantly covered antiterrorism and the non-proliferation of WMD.
During the Seventh EU-China Summit, in December 2004, the ‘Joint Declaration on
Non-Proliferation and Arms Control’ was signed by the two parties. This document saw China and the
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EU coming together and advocating a more diplomatic, peaceable approach, as opposed to the interventionist, unilateralist American approach of the time. During the Summit, it was stated that China and the EU “recognise each other as major strategic partners in the area of disarmament and non-proliferation”. It was also noted that “both sides appreciated their respective efforts in
facilitating a political resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue”72 for instance, while Javier Solana declared in 2005 that in the Iranian issue “the EU and China have both expended considerable diplomatic effort to support what the other is doing. This has strengthened both our hands. This is strategic partnership in action”.73 The case of Iran also featured in the EU-China 'strategic dialogue' meeting in December 2005, and has been a pressing issue ever since, as developed in Chapter Three.
China and the EU have been key to the multilateral, diplomatic discussions that managed to keep open the possibility of a peaceful solution to the Iranian issue.
In the meantime, the EU and China do have regular consultations at an expert level on non-proliferation and conventional arms exports, which is encouraging. Furthermore in 2008, the EU adopted an Action Plan on chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear security, that will further curb proliferation of WMDs and the export of dual-use technologies, including to China, itself a legal nuclear country.74
In 2010, a meeting was held in Beijing during which around a hundred government officials, experts, scholars and business representatives from China and the EU came together to discuss non-proliferation export control policies, debating problems concerning export licensing and export control enforcement at the 2010 China-EU Export Controls Seminar75; thus showing both parties' interest in cooperating in these matters. The same year China released a White Paper on non-proliferation, extolling its responsible approach to non-proliferation and asserting its opposition to
72 Joint Statement of the EU-China Summit, December 9, 2004 http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/wjdt/2649/t174512.htm accessed May 29, 2012
73 Javier Solana, Driving Forwards the China-EU Strategic Partnership, speech given to the China-Europe Business School in Shanghai, September 6, 2005 http://ue.eu.int/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/discours/86125.pdf accessed May 29, 2012
74 http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/justice_freedom_security/fight_against_terrorism/jl0030_en.htm accessed May 30, 2012
75 China, EU discuss non-proliferation cooperation, Xinhua (2010, December 8)
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-12/08/c_13640928.htm accessed May 27, 2012
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proliferation of WMDs and of their means of delivery, likely to reaffirm its commitment to non-proliferation and shore up its international image in the wake of hardening opinions on Iran.76 In 2012, the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association and the U.K. Royal United Services Institute held the China-U.K. Nuclear Strategy Research Meeting in Beijing, discussing the future of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty as well as possibilities of cooperation.77
At the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit in 2012, Beijing took a proactive approach, once more stating its commitment to non-proliferation and putting forward proposals to enhance nuclear security.78 During the summit, the secretary-general of China Arms Control and Disarmament Association (organization founded in Beijing in 2001 to promote arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation) also put forward proposals to reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism, also offering technological assistance if needed by the international community.79