China-Pak N-deal: Is it legal?

Unlike the earlier days of Indian diplomacy when the government usually down-played anything to do with China, things have changed. This aspect of Indian diplomacy has come to the fore in the last three years or so, especially since mid-2009 when Beijing raised a huge racket not only opposing the visit of the Dalai Lama to Tawang, but also that of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Following a sharp reaction from New Delhi, the Beijing leaders decided cool down the situation.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh decided to send National Security Advisor (NAS) Shiv Shankar Menon to Beijing just before the Zardari visit. Very few people in India know China as well as Shiv Shankar Menon does. He has not only been Ambassador to China, but has served in the Indian Mission in Beijing earlier in other capacities. The Chinese also know him very well, and both enjoy good relations.

The NSA carried with him other issues, but the central piece was the Sino-Pak nuclear deal. He asked the Chinese to clarify the deal and the Chinese “assured” him that it would be fully legal, peaceful in nature and under the supervision of the IAEA. 

Mr. Menon left Beijing on the day President Zardari arrived July 6. The Chinese, who are known for symbolism and making statements without articulation, must have noticed this signal. India seriously meant what its NSA conveyed.

Why did the Chinese stop short of announcing the deal during the Zardari visit? After all two of China’s state owned nuclear power companies had already entered into a contract for the project. Neither of the heads of the two enterprises met President Zardari, according to Chinese media reports. Instead, top officials China’s biggest arms export company NORINCO, did.

The NSG annual meet in Christchurch, New Zealand last month did not mention the China-Pak deal. The US did not raise the issue, but on an individual basis asked Beijing for some clarifications. Britain has also stated separately that Pakistan cannot be given NSG exemption at the moment. A few other countries have expressed reservations and raised some questions.

Some western, mainly US, analysts are of the opinion that the India-US nuclear deal opened the doors for countries like Pakistan. Others are of the opinion that the case of India was very different from that of Pakistan (and China) because of their respective proliferation records.

Most encouraging for China is the mild position adopted by the US. Sharp differences had cropped up between the US and China on issues like trade imbalance and the artificially low value of the Chinese currency. There are differences over the North Korean nuclear weapons programme, and recent offensive activities in the region.

But the Obama administration feels that it needs China increasingly in Afghanistan. President Obama has been wooing the Beijing leadership including offering them ombudsmanship of South Asia. Which is suddenly it appears that these differences are being quietly diffused.

The China-Pakistan deal can be viewed from two perspectives.

One is the Indian perspective,  which will have its repercussion in the South Asian region and the Middle East. The other is the overall impact on non-proliferation.

According to Andrew Small of the German Marshall Plan in Washington and an expert on Pakistan-China relations, Chinese experts privately described the new deal as a counter weight to the India-US nuclear agreement. According to Small “With rising India, and the India-US nuclear factor, China’s traditional element of backing Pakistan is back more in play”.

Despite recent statements by Indian leaders -- endorsed by their Chinese counterparts -- that there is enough space in Asia for the two countries to exist and work together peacefully, the facts indicate otherwise.

From the very beginning, Communist China viewed India as the main challenge to its quest to dominate Asia in its road to global domination. Beijing used Pakistan’s visceral anti-Indianism and shaped it into a weapon to keep India bleeding and engaged inside a small part of Asia. They have been fairly successful in this endeavour, assisted by the politics of the Cold War.

The shadow of the Cold War still exists in many capitals of the West, but it is most pronounced in Washington. During the Cold War, the US largely ignored nuclear and missile proliferation from China to Pakistan, which built Pakistan’s strategic forces’ back bone. 

After the Cold War, the vision of a huge Chinese market and cheap labour force influenced the US State Department and the White House to turn a blind eye to such proliferations, except periodically sanctioning some Chinese state owned companies for illegal transfers, mainly to Iran. Both China and Pakistan saw these as acceptable pin pricks and nothing more.

These very deliberate omissions by the US and the West led to the huge nuclear proliferation from China to Pakistan extending to Libya and Iran. The Pakistan programme was substantially funded by Saudi Arabia to manufacture the “Islamic Bomb”.  

Saudi Arabia is said to have a secret nuclear programme but very little is known about it.  Little is also said about China’s supply of CSS-2 nuclear capable missiles to the Kingdom.

Who is assisting Riyadh in these quiet programmes? China had contracted with Syria in the 1980s to design and supply short range nuclear  capable missiles, which was scrapped under US pressure. Is there a Chinese connection with a Syrian nuclear programme?
 
Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation which exploded about six years back with the busting of the A.Q. Khan network, has been left half investigated. Everyone knows A.Q. Khan, the main nuclear salesman, was a scapegoat. In truth, it was known and abetted at the highest quarters in both Pakistan and China.

The US has, to a great extent, allowed these activities to go on since (a) it has the capability to provide a nuclear umbrella to its NATO allies, Japan and Australia, and (b) full and determined intervention in these activities may affect its other geopolitical agenda.

The pattern of China-Pak nuclear and missile proliferation clearly reveals a Chinese strategy to sufficiently arm Muslim countries as a constituency against the West. Oil is one reason. But the search for overall influence is of even more greater relevance. The China-Pak new nuclear agreement is a reiteration of the greater Chinese strategy.

The argument goes that since both India and Pakistan are non-signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and both are now declared nuclear states, both should enjoy the same privileges. This argument is totally flawed.

India’s nuclear non-proliferation record vindicates its determination to counter proliferation. India exists in an environment and shadow of China’s nuclear arsenal compounded by that of its “all weather friend and ally”, Pakistan.

To get the NSG waiver and enter into the peaceful nuclear use deal India had to go through a grueling test from 2005 to 2008. It had to prove its clean record, though China continued to oppose it till the last moment to keep parity with Pakistan. To be honest, China has been quite open about its position.

As a member of the NSG will China agree that the deal should go through the NSG where both Pakistan’s and China’s record would be thoroughly and openly scrutinized and questioned? China would rather not, as in such a case many things not openly known or talked about China’s record will come to the fore. One of them would be China’s ongoing assistance to Pakistan’s Kushab-III and Kushab-IV plants to produce plutonium for bombs.

One of the possible reasons for China not declaring  the Pakistan projects during President Zardari’s visit could be that it wants to study the pulse of the international community further. But Chinese statements make it clear that the question is not if, but when.

China is about to renege on its commitment to the NPT which it joined in 1992, and to the NSG it acceded to in 2004. This behavior is nothing new to the People’s Republic. When it agreed to abide by the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) in 1992, it continued to violate its own words with impunity.

To compound everything, President Barak Obama’s Asia policy is a continent of confusion.

This one step will spell the demise of the NSG, and other such regimes. The Indian government must raise this issue even more strongly with the international community.  The Sino-Pak nuclear deal could open the proverbial Pandora’s Box.


Bhaskar Roy, who retired recently as a senior government official with decades of national and international experience, is an expert on international relations and Indian strategic interests.

Also read: Column: Cracks in the Chinese mask | N-deal, China and the Assassin's Mace | Why should we trust China? | China: Denial and deception | More Bhaskar Roy columns