The Permanent Representative of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations takes note with regret that the United States has included its arms transfers to Taiwan, a province of the People's Republic of China, in the footnote of its annual reports provided to the Register for the calendar year 1995 and 1996 and reaffirms China's position on the issue as follows. The United Nations Register of Conventional Arms is the register of legitimate transfers of certain categories of conventional arms between sovereign states. Taiwan is a province of the People's Republic of China, not a sovereign state. The arms transfers from the United States to Taiwan are neither legitimate nor transfers between sovereign states. The People's Republic of China does not accept any reference in whatever form to the arms transfers to Taiwan in the Register.

The Permanent Representative of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations hopes that the Secretary-General of the United Nations will take appropriate steps to delete the above-mentioned reference from his Report on the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms and to make sure that no reference whatsoever to the arms transfers to Taiwan appear in future Reports on the Register, in order to safeguard the authority of the relevant resolutions of the General Assembly and the seriousness of the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms.

EXPORTS
Report of international conventional arms transfers
(according to General Assembly resolution 46/36L)
Reporting country: China
Calendar year: 1996
 

A	B	C	D	E		Remarks
Category (I-VII)	Final importer State(s)	Number of items	State of origin (if not exporter)	Intermediate location (if any)		Description of item	Comments on the transfer
I. Battle tanks	Pakistan	3
III. Large calibre artillery systems	Bangladesh	18
IV. Combat aircraft	Iran (Islamic Republic of)	5
VI. Warships	Iran (Islamic Republic of)	5
VII. Missiles and missile launchers	Iran (Islamic Republic of)	102
	Pakistan	4				Ship-based missile launchers

IMPORTS
Report of international conventional arms transfers
(according to General Assembly resolution 46/36L)
Reporting country: China
Calendar year: 1996
 

A	B	C	D	E		Remarks
Category (I-VII)	Exporter State(s)	Number of items	State of origin (if not exporter)	Intermediate location (if any)		Description of item	Comments on the transfer
IV. Combat aircraft	Russian Federation	22				SU-27