8 March 2013 - On 26 February, Saferworld and CACDA held a seminar in Beijing highlighting the opportunities and challenges to achieve a robust arms trade treaty. The seminar, ‘Strengthening International Dialogue and Co-operation on Conventional Arms Control’, also launched an EU-China-Africa Resource Centre on Conventional Arms Control.

Forty participants, including senior Chinese military experts, government officials, defence industry representatives, think tank experts, as well as Beijing-based foreign diplomats, shared insights and perspectives on the current state of the UN ATT initiative and the position of China and other countries in advance of the final UN ATT conference due to be held in New York between 18-28 March. The seminar highlighted many positive developments and remaining challenges for achieving a robust and effective ATT, with emphasis placed on the content of the future treaty and its implementation.

The event also marked the official launch of the EU-China-Africa Resource Centre on Conventional Arms Control which will be hosted by CACDA. The objective of the Resource Centre is to support joint research and analysis on conventional arms by EU, Chinese and African researchers. It provides a wide range of relevant materials and resources in English and Chinese related to conventional arms and the ATT process. These are being made accessible both physically through a library and electronically through a website.

The seminar was chaired by Li Hong, Secretary General of CACDA and Dr Owen Greene, Chair of the Board of Trustees of Saferworld. The event featured presentations by Zhai Dequan, Deputy Secretary General of CACDA, William Flens, First Secretary at the Embassy of the USA, Bernardo Mariani, China Programme Manager, Saferworld, and Thomas Wheeler, China Project Co-ordinator, Saferworld. The presentations were followed by questions-and-answers sessions.