Approaches to Transparency in Arms Control and Verification - A Canadian View of Chinese Perspectives

Authors

  • Robert E. Bedeski Department of Political Science, University of Victoria

Abstract

China and Canada represent nearly two opposite ends of a continuum starting with near-total secrecy and ending at near-total transparency in matters of state. Canada advocates transparency, and China opposes it - or at least is extremely cautious in cooperating unless some vital interests are served. China is increasingly drawn into processes of transparency and verification, but the prevailing view is that transparency is only possible between states of equal power; otherwise, the weaker are at a disadvantage in revealing their weakness. It can be argued that Chinese reluctance to increase transparency only fuels suspicions about its intentions. China regards secrecy to be an essential element of statecraft, and will not modify it simply to mollify critics, or to surrender it for access to more sophisticated Western technology. Greater availability of timely and accurate information can have positive benefits for international peace and security, but it is the imbalance between democratic and authoritarian habits of information control that differing notions of transparency emerge. Transparency is not merely a technical problem, but one which derives from the nature of the political system.

Author Biography

Robert E. Bedeski, Department of Political Science, University of Victoria

Robert E. Bedeski is currently Professor of Political Science and Program Professor: Human Security and Peace in the Asia-Pacific Region, Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives (CAPI) at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, has lived and traveled extensively in East Asia – especially China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and Mongolia. He was the first non-Japanese Research Fellow at the National Institute of Defense Studies in Tokyo in 1980-81, and has frequently lectured and conducted research in Japan, on topics of security and international relations. He is the author of The Fragile Entente: The 1978 Japan-China Peace Treaty in a Global Context. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1983), and The Transformation of South Korea: Reform and Reconstitution in the Sixth Republic under Roh Tae Woo, 1987-1992. (London: Routledge, 1994). Current research and writing has focused on Human Security, Chinese international migration, arms control and verification on the Korean Peninsula, and small arms proliferation in Asia. He has been a co-organizer of the annual Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (Canada) and the Korean Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA) Workshops on Arms Control and Verification, which alternated between Seoul and Victoria. He served as President of the Japan Studies Association of Canada in 1995, and was Co-Chair of the Canadian Consortium on Asia Pacific Security (CANCAPS) (1998). He currently chairs the Maritime Security Working Group (MSWG) of CANCAPS. He is also a member of the Canadian Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in Asia Pacific (CSCAP), and the Advisory Board for Royal Roads University Conflict Analysis and Management Programme.

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Issue

Vol. 4 No. 1 (2001): Winter 2000/Spring 2001

Section

Articles