Policy

The People’s Republic of China has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty.

China has stated that it agrees with “the vision and goals of the convention,” especially its humanitarian underpinnings.[1] In November 2020, China said that it appreciates “the convention's humanitarian spirit, and recognizes its purpose and objective, and acknowledges and attaches importance to its role.”[2] However, China has reiterated that it cannot consider acceding to the convention due to its ongoing national defense needs.

China’s policy toward the Mine Ban Treaty and other humanitarian issues is regularly reviewed by its National Committee of International Humanitarian Law, an interministerial body chaired by the vice-premier that meets every two years.[3]

China did not participate in the Ottawa Process that created the Mine Ban Treaty. However, it has participated as an observer at all four of the treaty’s review conferences, as well as at most of its Meetings of States Parties and intersessional meetings. China did not attend the Nineteenth Meeting of States Parties held virtually in November 2021, or the intersessional meetings held in Geneva in June 2022.

On 6 December 2021, China voted in favor of annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 76/26, calling for the universalization and full implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty.[4] China has voted in favor of the resolution every year since 2005.

China is not party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) and its Amended Protocol II on landmines.

Production and transfer

China has been one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of antipersonnel mines.[5] Since 1997, China has limited its production to landmines with self-destruct and self-deactivation mechanisms that comply with CCW Amended Protocol II requirements.[6] In November 2016, a Ministry of National Defense official reiterated earlier statements that non-self-destructing landmines are no longer manufactured.[7]

China enacted a moratorium on the export of landmines that do not comply with CCW Amended Protocol II in 1996. China is not known to have exported any type of antipersonnel mine during that time, but it has transferred antivehicle landmines. Chinese-made Type-84 rocket-delivered antivehicle mines were used in Libya in 2011 and Syria in 2014.[8]

Stockpiling and destruction

In 2014, China told the Monitor that it stockpiles five million antipersonnel mines—a huge reduction from the 110 million previously cited by the Monitor.[9] It is unclear if that figure is still accurate, as China has provided no further information on the quantity or types possessed.

China has reported on the destruction of antipersonnel mines since the late 1990s, but with scant detail on the types and quantities destroyed.[10] In 2014, China stated that “several hundred thousand old and dysfunctional” antipersonnel mines had been destroyed from its stocks “over the last two decades,” and said that “a very limited number of [CCW] protocol compliant [antipersonnel mines] were kept for defense purpose[s].”[11]

China’s CCW Amended Protocol II transparency report provided in April 2022 did not report any further destruction of antipersonnel mines.[12]

Use

In June 2014, Chinese representatives informed the Monitor that no new antipersonnel mines had been used in the country in the past decade, and acknowledged that antipersonnel mines no longer played a prominent role in China’s defense doctrine.[13] Previously, in 2012, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official confirmed that no new minefields had been laid.[14] In 2011, a Chinese official noted that the country maintains a small number of minefields “for national defense.”[15]