Is India protesting too much about the Sino-Pak nuke deal?

Disconcertingly, the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) did not discuss China’s controversial plan to build two new atomic power stations in Pakistan in its annual five-day meeting held in New Zealand. Apparently, the matter did come up but was not placed on the formal agenda.

Earlier, Beijing was requested several times to clarify its position on this plan, but had not bothered to reply. A statement issued after the NSG meeting tamely “took note of briefings on developments concerning non-NSG states. It agreed on the value of ongoing consultation and transparency”. Such was the extreme circumspection shown by the NSG for China’s sensitivities.

The NSG came into existence in 1974 in response to India’s diversion of nuclear imports for its peaceful nuclear explosion. It has transformed itself into a watch-dog organisation that coordinates international export controls over transfers of civilian nuclear material, equipment and technology to non-nuclear weapon states to prevent their use for manufacturing nuclear weapons.

All such transfers can only be affected under international safeguards and inspection arrangements. By definition the NSG’s guidelines only apply to non-nuclear weapon states that are members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), although they can be extended to states outside the NPT, provided they place their entire nuclear program under international safeguards and inspections.

India and Pakistan are not members of the NSG and both possess nuclear weapons. But India succeeded in entering the Indo-US nuclear deal in 2008 after it secured a waiver from the NSG Guidelines following intense US pressure on its members. India accepted several constraints on its nuclear program in return for this concession.

Like agreeing to separate its military and civil nuclear programs and accept international safeguards on its entire civilian program. Thereafter, India has entered into nuclear trade deals with a number of NSG members.

In truth, the Bush administration undertook these extraordinary actions favouring India for several political and economic reasons, but largely to establish India as a strategic counterweight to China.

China is aware of these larger strategic implications of the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Its role was highly dubious when India’s case came up before the NSG. It assured India and the US that it would not obstruct the passage of the Indo-US nuclear deal. But, it instigated several NSG countries to oppose the deal, while asserting that it had the right to offer a similar deal to Pakistan.

Ultimately, a demarche by India and American pressure succeeded in persuading China to moderate its opposition, but it is clear now that China was biding its time for evolving its own reaction to the Indo-US nuclear deal.

The China-Pakistan nuclear deal clearly violates the NSG’s rules and regulations in the absence of a special dispensation. China’s argument is that its supply of nuclear reactors to Pakistan does not require any NSG approval, since this deal is a continuation of its earlier agreement to supply two nuclear reactors to Pakistan, which is disingenuous.

The US has expressed deep concern considering the appalling nuclear proliferation history of Pakistan. China’s nuclear proliferation history is the same considering its linkages to North Korea, Pakistan, Myanmar, Iran and Syria — the notorious aberrant nations in the international system. At the moment China has yet to decide which way to jump — heed the international sentiment or defy the same to progress its ‘lip-and-teeth’ relationship with Pakistan.

Unsurprisingly, Pakistan’s official spokesman has claimed that Pakistan’s nuclear program “is purely for peaceful objectives”. Apparently, India has sought to influence the NSG members from behind the scenes.

But its official non-officials have gone berserk claiming that the Sino-Pak nuclear deal, by making Pakistan an exceptional to the NSG guidelines, will lead to a collapse of the NSG. Apropos, India had also been made an exception to the NSG Guidelines.

Arguing that this is justifiable because India’s proliferation record is shining, but Pakistan’s record is besmirched ignores the unfortunate fact that the NSG itself was created after India’s diversion of civilian nuclear imports for its “peaceful nuclear explosion”.

And the US had ignored Pakistan’s steady march to nuclear capability in the eighties when its cooperation was needed to torment the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Even now, the US speaks softly because it requires Pakistan to enable the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan by 2011. And, China has huge deposits in US Federal reserves.

The length of the Chinese purse has, indeed, become the beginning of all wisdom. Or, to put it in the Mumbai dialect, “Agar khisey main paise hota, to sabhi Ram Ram bolta”.

Realpolitik spells discretion and avoidance of firm positions. Having benefited from US realpolitik, India is protesting too much with its ineffectual diplomatic manoeuvres.