joining MTCR." In October 1994, the MTCR member states established a "no undercut" policy: if one member denies the sale of technology to another country, all members must do likewise. China originally viewed the MTCR as a discriminatory measure by Western governments, which sold sophisticated military aircraft while restricting sales of competing ballistic missiles. It verbally agreed that it would adhere to the MTCR in November 1991, and included the assurance in a letter from its foreign minister in February 1992. China reiterated its pledge in the October 1994 US-China joint statement. In their October 1997 joint statement, the United States and China said that they agreed "to build on the 1994 Joint Statement on Missile Nonproliferation." The Missiles and Missile-related Items and Technologies Export Control List, a formal regulation, was issued in August 2002. The following year, the MTCR chair invited China to participate. China requested to join the MTCR in 2004, but membership was not offered because of concerns about the country's export-control standards. Israel, Romania and Slovakia have agreed to follow MTCR export rules, although they are not yet members. The regime has its limitations; member countries have been known to clandestinely violate the rules. Some of these countries, with varying degrees of foreign assistance, have deployed medium-range ballistic missiles which can travel more than and are researching missiles with greater ranges; Israel and China have deployed strategic nuclear SLCMs, ICBMs and satellite-launch systems. Countries which are not MTCR members buy and sell on the global arms market; North Korea is currently viewed as the primary source of ballistic-missile proliferation in the world, and China has supplied ballistic missiles and technology to Pakistan. China supplied DF-3A IRBMs to Saudi Arabia in 1988 before it informally agreed to follow MTCR guidelines. Israel cannot export its Shavit space-launch system due to its non-member MTCR status, although the Clinton administration allowed an import waiver for US companies to buy the Shavit in 1994. Over 20 countries have ballistic missile systems. The International Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation (ICOC), also known as the Hague Code of Conduct, was established in 2002. The code, which calls for restraint and care in the proliferation of ballistic missile systems capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction, has 119 members. Its mission is similar to the MTCR's, an export group. India applied for membership in June 2015 with support from Russia, France and