Engaging China Delegates at an ORG-CPAPD conference in Beijing, September 1995 Since its inception in 1982, Oxford Research Group recognised the vital importance of China’s role in global security, particularly its role in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation as one of the five established nuclear weapon states. Our earliest published research included an analysis of the structures and processes of decision-making in China, and voluntary citizen groups taking part in ORG’s early “Dialogue with Decision-Makers” project were advised to write to decision-makers in China as well as in Britain. For over twenty years now, thanks to a relationship established in 1985 with the newly formed Chinese People's Association for Peace and Disarmament (CPAPD), a series of reciprocal jointly hosted meetings, held alternately in Beijing and Oxford, have brought Chinese officials and experts together with their opposite numbers from the UK, France, Germany, the USA, Russia and the Indian subcontinent, for in-depth off-the-record dialogue with each other on issues of international security. The goal of Oxford Research Group in helping to organise these meetings was three-fold: to address the thorny practical issues of nuclear disarmament in a post-Cold War world; to enable personal contacts and friendships between Chinese and Western participants; and to begin to shift traditional ways of thinking away from the focus on security of states to the security of people and the planet. For many years, these exchanges were acknowledged to constitute a unique bilateral channel of communication between Britain and China, offering an important unofficial forum for senior officials and experts to meet and explore issues of international security. At the last joint ORG-CPAPD seminar in Beijing in November 2005, entitled “New threats to security in a multi-polar world: Global challenges and global solutions”, the issue of climate change and the capacity of renewable energy sources to meet global energy needs was on the agenda. Our interest is to promote dialogue with the Chinese on promoting realistic alternatives to nuclear power, which could enhance global security by limiting the spread of fissile materials and defusing global resources wars while making a significant contribution to lessening of global warming. Previous joint ORG–CPAPD seminars have addressed:
Publications American Missile
Defence: Views from China and Europe Proposals for a Nuclear Weapon-Free World: Next Steps in Nuclear Disarmament Global Security: The View from China |
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