China Complicit In Providing Substantial Nuclear, Missile Program Supplies To Pakistan: Report

Pakistan has procured supplies from China for its nuclear and missile programs, according to a new report by experts at King’s College of London.

“The scale of Islamabad’s procurement of sensitive material from Beijing is “so substantial that it must be concluded that the Chinese state is either complicit in supplying Pakistan’s programmes, or negligent in its control over state-owned enterprises,” the report, Pakistan’s strategic nuclear and missile industries prepared by Project Alpha of the Centre for Science and Security Studies at King’s College stated.

Pakistan has a “deliberate strategy of using deceptive methods to obtain dual-use goods” that has been demonstrated by its “systematic use of front companies to supply its strategic industries,” Hindustan times quoted the report Wednesday.

The deceptive methods of acquiring dual-use goods undermines “Pakistan’s claim that it is a responsible actor in the non-proliferation domain: Pakistan cannot expect to be welcomed into the NSG when it continues to secretly and systematically undermine NSG members’ national export control systems by targeting companies through the use of front companies and other deceptive techniques,” the report said.

“What is mentioned in this report sounds so true but it doesn’t hold water because it evades a fundamental question that is whether all the exports China made to Pakistan violates its legal and international obligations,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Lu Kang told media briefing in response to the report.

Beijing claims its assistance to Pakistan to build nuclear power plants is under the norms of Nuclear Suppliers Group, (NSG) and the Internal Atomic Energy Agency, (IAEA).

The deceptive methods used by Pakistan to obtain dual-use goods questions “Pakistan’s claim that it is a responsible actor in the non-proliferation domain.