JOIN USDespite détente, China again disappoints India at NSG
Beijing disappointed New Delhi once again as it continued on its position blocking India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which concluded its 29th annual plenary in Kazakhstan on Friday.
China continued to block India’s proposed admission into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) – notwithstanding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bonhomie with Chinese President Xi Jinping and the meeting between the two leaders on the sideline of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s summit at Bishkek in Kyrgyz Republic as recently as on June 13.
The NSG had its 29th annual plenary at Nur-Sultan in Kazakhstan on Thursday and Friday. The plenary saw the representatives of the NSG’s 48 member nations discussing the issue of granting membership to the countries like India and Pakistan, which did not sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, commonly known as the NPT. They, however, could not reach a consensus and the plenary concluded without any breakthrough in efforts to resolve the contentious issue.
A spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs told journalists in Beijing on Friday that the NSG would not discuss India’s entry into the organization before reaching a specific plan on admitting the countries, which had not yet signed the NPT.
The “public statement” issued by the NSG after the plenary at Nur-Sultan however noted that “discussions were continuing” within the cartel “on the requests” submitted by several nations to join it.
It also noted the discussions on the issue of “technical, legal and political aspects of the participation of non-NPT States (the countries which did not sign the NPT) in the NSG”.
New Delhi had submitted its application for membership of the NSG on May 12, 2016 – just days before the cartel had held its annual plenary in Seoul.
Beijing had since been stonewalling the US-led move to admit India into the NSG.
The NSG controls global nuclear commerce. The guidelines of the 48-nation organization prohibit its members to enter into nuke ties with the countries that did not sign the NPT. Neither India, nor Pakistan has signed the NPT. The NSG, however, granted a waiver to India in 2008. The waiver paved the way for India entering into a civil nuclear deal with the US. India subsequently struck similar agreements with other countries, including France, Australia and Canada.
Not only the US, but Russia, France, United Kingdom and many other NSG members too had extended support to India’s bid for membership of the cartel. Kazakhstan, which is going to hold the NSG chair till the plenary next year, had also been supporting India’s plea for a seat in the NSG.
China, however, has been arguing that if the “NPT signatory” criterion was diluted to admit India into the NSG, it should also open up the door for other non-NPT countries, including Pakistan.
Pakistan too submitted its plea for membership of the NSG on May 19, 2016.
Beijing’s representatives at the NSG annual plenary in the past few years insisted that the discussion should not only be focused on India's entry into cartel, but also possibilities of admitting Pakistan and all other “non-NPT countries”.
China has been arguing that the NSG should first “explore” through “an open and transparent” process and reach agreement on a non-discriminatory formula” to deal with the issue of granting membership to the “non-NPT countries” and, once the non-discriminatory formula would be adopted by the group, it should move to the second stage to take up the “country-specific membership issues”.
New Delhi’s hope for a change in the position of Beijing during the NSG plenary at Nur-Sultan was belied on Friday.
What had particularly raised New Delhi’s hope for a change in the stand of Beijing at the NSG was the communist country’s recent move to take away another major irritant in its ties with India. China on May 1 budged from its long-standing policy of shielding leaders of terror outfits based in Pakistan from United Nations sanctions. It stood aside to let the Security Council sanction Masood Azhar, the chief of Jaish-e-Mohammad – a terrorist outfit based in Pakistan and responsible for several attacks in India, including the February 14 suicide bombing killing over 40 Central Reserve Police Force soldiers at Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir. China’s turnaround on the issue of sanctioning the JeM chief came amid parliamentary elections in India and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party highlighted it as a major success of Modi Government’s diplomatic efforts.
The Modi-Xi meeting at Bishkek on June 13 was Prime Minister’s first meeting with Chinese President after he led the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to a landslide victory in the Lok Sabha elections held in April-May and thus retained the top office in New Delhi for the second five-year-term. It was also the fifth meeting between the two leaders after the “informal summit” they had at Wuhan in central China on April 27 and 28.
The “informal summit” and the follow-up engagements at different levels led to a thaw in India-China relations, which had hit a new low over the military stand-off in Doklam Plateau in western Bhutan in June-August 2017.
Modi will again host Xi for the second “informal summit” in October.
Three other international export control cartels – Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), Wassenaar Arrangement (WA) and Australia Group (AG) – admitted India as its members in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
The MTCR’s primary objective to restrict proliferation of missiles, complete rocket systems, unmanned air vehicles, and related technology for systems capable of carrying a 500 kilogram payload at least 300 kilometres, as well as systems intended for the delivery of weapons of mass destruction.
The WA controls global commerce of conventional arms and dual-use goods and technologies. The AG governs international trade of materials used to make chemical and biological weapons.
China is not a member of the MTCR, WA or AG.
The NSG, which has China among its 48 members, is the only international export control regime which has not yet opened up its door for India, thanks to opposition by the communist country.
India’s “Intended Nationally Determined Contribution” to global effort to mitigate climate change would require it to generate 40% power without using fossil fuel by 2030.
The Government has a target to raise installed capacity for nuclear power generation from 5780 MWe to 63 GWe by 2032.
New Delhi conveyed to Beijing in the past that India’s membership of the NSG would enable it to take part in the process to frame rules for international nuclear trade and would thus provide for “a predictable global environment”, which would help it implement its plan to substantially raise atomic power generation, sources told the DH in New Delhi.