REPORT SAYS CHINA CONTINUES TO AID PAKISTAN’S MISSILE PROGRAMMES THROUGH SALES OF SENSITIVE DUAL-USE TECHNOLOGY

NEW DELHI: Pakistan’s continued use of front companies and other deceptive methods to obtain dual-use goods for its nuclear programme means it cannot “expect to be welcomed” into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a new report by experts at King’s College of London has said.

The report contends that 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 stateowned enterprises”.

“Pakistan’s strategic nuclear and missile industries”, prepared by Project Alpha of the Centre for Science and Security Studies at King’s College, concluded 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”.

Islamabad maintains a network of at least 20 trading companies in mainland China, Hong Kong, Dubai and Singapore that it uses to “covertly funnel dualuse goods to its strategic programmes”.

“While the full extent of their overseas operations are not clear, these trading companies probably purchase goods from manufacturers in China, Europe, the United States and elsewhere and then arrange their export to Pakistan,” the report said.

The deceptive methods of acquiring dual-use goods undermines “Pakistan’s claim that it is a responsible actor in the nonproliferation 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.