DATE=10/14/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CHINA-US-TEST BAN (L ONLY)
NUMBER=2-255000
BYLINE=ROGER WILKISON
DATELINE=BEIJING
CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO:   China says it deeply regrets the United States 
Senate's refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test 
Ban Treaty, but is promising to hasten work on its own 
ratification of the document.  VOA correspondent Roger 
Wilkison reports Beijing says the Senate's vote will not 
affect China's self-declared moratorium on nuclear tests.

TEXT:  Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue -
speaking through an interpreter-told reporters Beijing 
regrets the failure of the US Senate to ratify the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, also known as the CTBT.

            /////INTERPRETER ACTUALITY/////

China deeply regrets that the U-S Senate voted to reject 
the ratification of the C-T-B-T. 

            /////END ACTUALITY/////

Ms. Zhang noted that the United States is one of 44 
countries whose ratification is required for the treaty to 
enter into force.  Earlier this week, she urged the United 
States to ratify the pact.

            /////INTERPRETER ACTUALITY/////

Its ratification of the treaty has great influence on the 
entering into force of the treaty.

            /////END ACTUALITY/////

Beijing signed the C-T-B-T in 1996.  Ms. Zhang pledged that 
China will speed up its own ratification process.

            /////INTERPRETER ACTUALITY/////

China has started the process of the ratification, and 
China is going to have a serious deliberation on the 
treaty, and on this basis we will accelerate the process of 
ratification.

            /////END ACTUALITY/////

Ms. Zhang quoted President Jiang Zemin as telling the 
United Nations Disarmament Conference in Geneva last March 
that China has always stuck to the provisions of the 
treaty, despite not having ratified it as yet.  China says 
it has not conducted a nuclear test since July, 1996.  It 
has observed a moratorium on testing since then, and Ms. 
Zhang says it will continue to do so.

China is believed to have deployed 284 nuclear warheads, 
less than any other nuclear power.  Russia and the United 
States are estimated to have deployed more than seven 
thousand each.  (signed)

NEB/RW/FC



14-Oct-1999 04:47 AM EDT (14-Oct-1999 0847 UTC)
NNNN

Source: Voice of America
.