China support for Asean nuclear weapon-free zone 'counter-intuitive' if other states do not sign pact

China's willingness to sign a treaty making Southeast Asia a nuclear weapon-free zone would be "counter-intuitive" if other such states do not sign the agreement, analysts have said.

It was also unclear how Beijing intended to abide by the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Treaty (SEANWFZ) - also known as the Bangkok Treaty - even if it signed the protocol to the pact, as its growing arsenal showed it was merely finding ways to counter a Western-driven submarine programme, observers noted.

During a meeting last week with Kao Kim Hourn, secretary general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said Beijing was "willing to take the lead" in signing the protocol to help safeguard regional security and stability.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping told Asean leaders in 2021 that Beijing was ready to sign the protocol "at the earliest possible date", just months after the US-led Aukus alliance with Australia and Britain was unveiled.

In force since 1997, the SEANWFZ obliges the member states of Asean "not to develop, manufacture or otherwise acquire, possess or have control over nuclear weapons; station or transport nuclear weapons by any means; or test or use nuclear weapons".

None of the five recognised nuclear-armed states - China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States - has signed the protocol, which would oblige them not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against any party to the treaty and region.

Alvin Chew, senior fellow at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said China's willingness to lead the treaty signing pointed to its desire to promote peace and stability in the region.

"(China is) stepping up its ante in pushing for non-proliferation on the global front, all done to implicitly balance the strategic partnerships of the US," Chew said, but pointed out that all five nuclear weapons states (NWS) would have to ratify the protocol for the treaty to be effectively implemented.

"China has always adopted the 'no first use of nuclear weapons' policy, or negative security assurance, and hence there is relatively less consequence, compared to other NWS, to sign onto SEANWFZ," Chew said, adding that it would be "counter-intuitive" if the other four NWS did not sign on.

Other NWS have not ratified as they object to the inclusion of continental shelves and exclusive economic zones which they say are not clearly defined in the South China Sea.

They also object to the restriction on the passage of nuclear-powered ships through the zone, and with the ambiguity of the treaty's language concerning port calls by ships which may carry nuclear weapons.

The restrictions on not using nuclear weapons within the zone worked against the pre-emptive strike capability of the NWS, Chew said, adding that the US wished to maintain first-strike capability in the region due to the "rising military prowess of China".

"Given the current global security environment, tensions on the Korean peninsula and the Taiwan Strait could widen the theatre of operations to Southeast Asia, [it is] therefore unlikely for all the NWS to sign onto the [treaty]," Chew said.

The situation was "almost similar" to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, Chew noted, which had garnered enough signatories and entered into force, but "is useless because all the signatories do not possess nuclear weapons and none of the NWS ... are signatory to it".

Trevor Findlay, a principal fellow at the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne, said that by agreeing to sign the protocol, China "hopes to curry favour with Asean and embarrass the other [NWS], especially the US and UK, but presumably not Russia".

China's "sudden interest" showed it was "clearly its campaign against the Aukus submarine project", Findlay said, referring to the trilateral security pact between the US, UK and Australia where nuclear-powered submarines would be supplied to Canberra to boost its attack capability in the event of a conflict.

Noting that NWS had long sought clarity from Asean about the ambiguities over the right of passage of nuclear-powered vessels through the zone and port visits by such vessels, Findlay said "it is unclear how China intends to square its nuclear naval deployments with the zone requirements" by breaking ranks with the other NWS.

"It may of course not intend to take the further legal step of ratifying the protocol which would fully commit it to complying with its requirements," Findlay said.

In a Pentagon report issued in November 2021, China was said to be on track to quintuple its nuclear arsenal by 2030 to at least 1,000 warheads.

Australia is not eligible to sign the protocol as a non-NWS, but would be "well advised" to reassure its Asean neighbours about respecting the zone should it acquire nuclear-powered submarines, Findlay added.

Noah Mayhew, a research associate with the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, said further objection by NWS to the restriction on not using nuclear weapons on targets within or outside the zone "almost certainly has to do with North Korea".

"[Pyongyang] is certainly a security threat in the region that [NWS] would likely wish to not limit themselves in responding to, if ever the horrible day arrives when that becomes necessary," Mayhew said, adding that NWS also objected to the inclusion of language restricting nuclear-powered ships' passage through the zone.

"This is where China's calculus comes in vis-a-vis Aukus," Mayhew said, noting that Beijing had falsely alleged that the provision of nuclear-powered submarines was impermissible under a host of international agreements to which Australia is party.

China had calculated that signing and ratifying the protocol would give it a "legitimate legal foothold" on which it could argue against or try to limit the effect of Australia's nuclear-powered submarines, Mayhew said, adding that Beijing's objections to Aukus were geopolitical rather than legal in nature.

"The Chinese government has been grasping at straws to find a credible legal basis on which to object to the Aukus partnership", Mayhew said, pointing to Chinese claims that the arrangement violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, International Atomic Energy Agency Statute and Australia's safeguards agreement.

"None of these arguments are accurate, my reading of this is that this is China's latest attempt at stalling Australia's programme," he added.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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