Like Chinese pictography, some times Chinese monosyllabic gestures are more suggestive than written or spoken words. This is evident from the news trickling from Beijing that China would be supportive to Indo-US Nuclear deal after Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh has a restricted meeting with the Chinese primer. Though there is no conclusive evidence, there are positive signals.

This inference can also be drawn from the statement, issued after the meeting of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at the East Asian Summit held in Singapore earlier that the Chinese Premier was forthcoming and supportive of international civil nuclear energy cooperation with India. 

Slow softening

Any avid Chinese observer can see that there is a slow but discernable softening of Chinese attitude towards the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal. The Joint Declaration issued on 21 November last year during the visit of the Chinese President Hu Jintao, very clearly mentioned about civil nuclear cooperation between the two countries and mentioned that, “considering that both for India and China, expansion of civilian nuclear energy programme is an essential and important component of their national energy plans to ensure energy security, the two sides agree to promote cooperation in the field of nuclear energy, consistent with their respective international commitments”. 

The Joint Declaration further stated that “as the two countries with advanced scientific capabilities, they stress the importance of further deepening cooperation bilaterally as well as through multilateral projects, and enhance exchanges in the related academic fields”. The reference to civil nuclear cooperation in the Joint Declaration between the two countries was unprecedented and was viewed by China experts in India as a turning point. 

While the Joint Declaration was non-committal about the Chinese position with regard to Indo-US nuclear deal and as to whether China would extend support to India in the 45 member Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG), in significant developments China, in recent past has mellowed down its criticism to the Indo-US nuclear deal saying that cooperation in use of nuclear energy for peaceful purpose would be beneficial for maintaining effectiveness of global non-proliferation efforts.

China considers that cooperation between countries to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes would be beneficial to maintain the principles and effectiveness of international nuclear non-proliferation. This was started by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang in December last year when asked to comment on the US Congress’ approval of the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal. The encouraging posture of China to the nuclear deal augurs well ahead of its passage in the Nuclear Supplier Group of which China is also a member. 

It was against this backdrop of discernable shift of China’s attitude that Foreign Secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon visited China with the broader objective of holding detailed discussion with regard to the border talks held in China from 24 to 25 in September and for preparing the groundwork for the current visit of the PM.

It was certainly not a coincidence that the visit of Foreign Minister, Pranab Mukherjee to Seol and that of the Foreign Secretary, Menon to Beijing took place at a time when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) deliberated the issue at Vienna.

Realisation

It is pertinent to mention that both China and Republic of Korea are members of the NSG. Securing the support of Beijing, could be crucial to India’s efforts to push the historic agreement through the NSG that will reopen doors of global civil nuclear commerce for New Delhi after a gap of three decades. 

There is a growing realisation the world over that if the increasing demand for energy is to be met, then we must have fresh approach to the nuclear issue and one need not be hamstrung by past prejudices and practices.

Commensurate with its emerging status as a world leader and a global power, China’s changing attitude to the whole issue of energy security including the nuclear issue and in particular the Indo-US nuclear deal is statesmanlike.

(The writer is a China specialist.)