China fuelling conflicts, abuses with arms sales, Amnesty says

Jun 12, 2006, 13:51 GMT

Beijing - China is helping to fuel conflicts and human rights abuses by selling arms to some of the world's poorest and least democratic nations, Amnesty International said Monday.

Governments have used Chinese arms to kill civilians and commit other human rights abuses in countries including Sudan, Nepal and Liberia, the London-based rights group said in a special report on China titled, 'Sustaining conflict and human rights abuses.'

'China is the only major arms-exporting power that has not entered into any multilateral agreement which sets out criteria, including respect for human rights, to guide arms-export licensing decisions,' it said.

Through state-run companies operating under its vast military and public-security organs, Chinese arms often reach 'countries where there are real risks that the arms are used to commit serious abuses.

'For example, China has continued to allow military equipment to be sent to Sudan despite well-documented and widespread killings, rapes and abductions by government armed forces and allied military groups in Darfur,' Amnesty said.

'In Nepal, China has supplied small arms and light weapons to the armed forces, which have been responsible for much of the killings and torture, often of civilians, in the internal armed conflict.'

The Chinese companies supply foreign police and military forces with major conventional weapons, small arms and light weapons, and police and security equipment.

Such sales 'frequently violate human rights law and international humanitarian law,' the report said.

In its 2005 report on the UN Programme of Action on small arms and light weapons, China said it took a 'cautious and responsible' approach to exports of conventional arms.

'Yet its record in supplying arms to countries such as Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan and Sudan suggests, by contrast, a dangerously permissive approach to licensing arms' exports, both of conventional weapons and of small arms and light weapons,' Amnesty said.

In China's first official reaction to the report, Assistant Foreign Minister Li Hui insisted that China was acting responsibly.

'I cannot agree with what you cited,' Li said when asked about the Amnesty report.

'China follows its international obligations,' he said.