Pushing Non-Westerners Out of the Global Arms Market: U.S. to Threaten Chinese Defence Clients with Economic Sanctions

The United States' assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs R. Clarke Cooper announced for the first time on February 10th that economic sanctions similar to those currently applied by the United States under the Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) could soon target clients for Chinese armaments. CAATSA was signed into law by President Donald Trump in August 2017, with the law’s most notable stipulation being that major clients for high end weapons systems from Russia, North Korea or Iran could be targets for economic sanctions. The law was passed following a Turkish order for Russian S-400 Triumf surface to air missile systems, which it had favoured over American Patriot and Chinese HQ-9B systems also on offer, and placed further pressure on Turkey to cancel its major arms deal with Russia. CAATSA has since been used to threaten a wide range of Russian arms clients including Indonesia, India, Iraq, Egypt and China.

It remains unclear whether CAATSA will be amended to include China, or whether its provisions will provide a model for separate laws targeting Chinese defence exports. Either way this would mean that sanctions would encompass all major non-Western arms exporters other than South Korea and Israel, and would represent a much harder line to reduce Russian, Chinese, North Korean and Iranian market shares while increasing that of the Western manufacturers on global arms markets. A number of U.S. defence partners, including Pakistan, Thailand, Bangladesh and the United Arab Emirates among others, could potentially be threatened by such an expansion due to their growing reliance in recent years on Chinese weapons systems.