By KANWAL SIBAL
11 July 2016
Much has been written and said about our abortive bid for NSG membership.
The Ministry of External Affairs' background briefing has shed light on why we pressed for membership at this juncture, why we failed, procedural issues raised by some countries, and China’s dogged opposition.
All this still leaves room for further analysis and reflection.
PM Narendra Modi failed in his bid to win India membership of the Nuclear Suppliers' Group
A disquieting feature of the Seoul setback was the diplomatic victory China scored over the US, in a forum established by the US and dominated by it for decades.
If China could block the US here, it does raise questions about US willingness and capacity to checkmate China elsewhere - not only in the South China Sea, but also in our region.
Washington is seeking expanded commitment from India against the rising Chinese threat in the Asia-Pacific region.
It should normally have reasoned that if its resolve to counter China on an issue such as India’s NSG membership - which China was opposing for purely political reasons and its unflinching support for Pakistan - was seen as weak, India would have less confidence in the tenacity of America’s rebalance towards Asia.
Business
Washington’s public support for India’s application and China’s equally public opposition to it made the issue of India’s NSG membership an open diplomatic tussle between the US and China.
Countries such as Austria, New Zealand, Ireland, Mexico, and Switzerland are amenable to firm US diplomacy, but were allowed to play into China’s hands and buttress its opposition by raising procedural issues.
PM Modi with Chinese President Xi Jinping (File photo)
China was allowed to inflict a diplomatic defeat on India and on the US itself.
China was a late entrant not only to the NPT, which it rejected as discriminatory for years, but also to the NSG, which it joined in 2004.
For such a country to swear by the NPT and project itself as a conscientious upholder of the NSG guidelines compared to the unprincipled approach of the US is quite ironic.
China's nuclear relationship with Pakistan in the past - and even now - cannot withstand strict NSG scrutiny.
The US has chosen not to confront China on this issue as other differences have higher priority in its eyes.
Other factors have given China room for its NSG power play.
China is expanding its nuclear sector massively. US, French, and Russian companies are constructing several nuclear power plants in the country, which makes business considerations very relevant.
Kingpin
China has been offered a stake in the UK’s Hinkley nuclear power project, which requires huge investment.
France’s Areva has signed a number of strategic agreements with China in the nuclear sector and is now offering equity in the company to China.
This would explain the reluctance to corner China on its nuclear cooperation with Pakistan and on India’s NSG membership.
China has behaved as a kingpin in the NSG, and has got away with it for the moment.
Ever since the India-US nuclear deal China has been challenging Washington’s global supremacy on non-proliferation matters.
To balance the India-US deal, China decided to enhance its nuclear cooperation with Pakistan by contracting to build two additional reactors without going through the process of seeking an NSG exemption for its protege.
The procedural and criteria argument is a red herring though, because there is no queue of countries seeking NSG membership.
Israel is not a declared nuclear power and has no intention of seeking NSG membership.
The whole debate boils down to India and Pakistan alone, and could have been settled on the basis of the merits of their individual cases.
There is no easy explanation as to why the US failed to clinch India’s membership, which has been on the political table for so long.
Even if China relents towards the end of the year, it has demonstrated its clout and conveyed that India has to earn its support and goodwill.
India’s public statement that it will not oppose Pakistan’s NSG membership politically is a notable diplomatic victory for China, particularly in the background of the political slap it administered to India at Vienna and Seoul.
The writer is a former foreign secretary
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