Year: 2009
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Introduction.Chapter 1.against South Korea and allied U.S. ground troops.China may pursue goals through weapons transfers, like the US and the USSR did from the 1950's through the 1980's.While the current system is more multipolar than the Cold War, most recipients still have relatively limited options.If arms are used for leverage, China is not a traditional supplier within the post-Cold War system.In this period, arms suppliers still engage in transfers for security reasons, but financial motivations loom larger.Since I want to understand contemporary arms sales, my study focuses on the time-frame immediately after the Cold War.Most studies of China's arms transfers focus on recipients, not on China itself.Between 1999 and 2006, China sold over 10 billion US dollars (USD) worth of arms to developing nations (Grimmet 2007).China does not just sell weapons to nations engaged in military hostilities, but nations that are routinely criticized by the international community, such as Sudan, Iran, and Myanmar.Human rights organizations claim China arms these regimes through weapons exports.Thereby, China not only stabilizes authoritarian rule but also escalates human rights abuses committed by these governments.3 While NGOs blame China for strengthening dictatorships, they do not explain why it selects these countries to be arms recipients.If it uses weapons transfers as a political tool, China is fulfilling rational objectives, and just happens to be sowing the seeds of repression in the process.For example, China may use weapons as bargaining leverage to gain access rights to a state's natural resources.4 If China uses arms transfers to gain natural resources, then its goal is not to strong-arm dictatorial regimes but to fulfill its domestic, natural resource demands.Still, China may unintentionally strengthen regimes hostile to the US through its arms 3 Amnesty International.(2006).China: secretive arms exports stroking conict and repression.4 This is also known as arms-for-access, which I will explore in the next chapter.
Author: Meredith Blank
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W378886863