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NEW DELHI: As India inches towards a membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the China-Pakistan nuclear transfer is a sign of the growing impotence of the high priesthood of nuclear affairs.
The US circulated a "non-paper" on India's membership at the NSG plenary meeting held in Seattle on June 22. The most controversial part of the paper is that NPT membership not be seen as a "condition" for being in the NSG. The "food-for-thought" paper took forward its recommendation for India's membership that the US had circulated at the last plenary in Noordwijk last year.
With the US at the helm of NSG this year, India feels its chances of securing a membership of the non-proliferation quartet NSG, Wassenaar Arrangement, Australia Group and MTCR are better than ever before. A statement issued at the end of the plenary said they "continued to consider all aspects of the implementation of the 2008 Statement on Civil Nuclear Cooperation with India and discussed the NSG relationship with India." But a consensus continues to elude the group.
India has done a bit of lobbying with other members of the NSG as well. Foreign minister S M Krishna met his Canadian counterpart recently to discuss the issue, while sources said some of the countries had watered down their objections. But the elephant in the room was China's declaration to supply two extra nuclear reactors to Pakistan without the niceties of a waiver by the NSG. For the past couple of years, NSG has wrung its hands at the prospect. However, Beijing's rebuff of the concerns underlines the nuclear body's lack of wherewithal to act against the P-5 nation and the world's newest superpower. China, however, has not taken further steps to actually transfer nuclear equipment to Pakistan after its announcement. Mark Hibbs, senior associate at Carnegie Endowment, told TOI, "My intuition is many members hope the transaction would not happen because of Pakistan's political and economic difficulties. For that reason countries in the NSG are not inclined to press hard on this at this moment. While China reiterated its political will, in fact, on the ground it's not clear the transfer will actually happen." Pakistan, too, is not the country it was when the first of the Chinese reactors were built there.
The closest the NSG came to flagging its concern was a general remark that "Participating Governments exchanged information on positive and negative developments in the nuclear non-proliferation regime; they also focused on specific regions and countries of concern."
India, though outside the NSG, is not pushing on the China front. China remains an outlier when it comes to India's own membership to the NSG, and New Delhi wants Beijing to get off the bench. Be that as it may, India is pushing hard on entering the non-proliferation regimes.
In a recent speech at IDSA intended for this purpose, foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai had said, "In November 2010, India expressed interest in taking forward this engagement with the international community to the next phase of seeking membership of the four export control regimes NSG, MTCR, Australia Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement we are aware that there are regime specificities. Each regime has its own membership criteria, control lists and methodology of work."
India inches closer to NSG membership - The Times of India
The US circulated a "non-paper" on India's membership at the NSG plenary meeting held in Seattle on June 22. The most controversial part of the paper is that NPT membership not be seen as a "condition" for being in the NSG. The "food-for-thought" paper took forward its recommendation for India's membership that the US had circulated at the last plenary in Noordwijk last year.
With the US at the helm of NSG this year, India feels its chances of securing a membership of the non-proliferation quartet NSG, Wassenaar Arrangement, Australia Group and MTCR are better than ever before. A statement issued at the end of the plenary said they "continued to consider all aspects of the implementation of the 2008 Statement on Civil Nuclear Cooperation with India and discussed the NSG relationship with India." But a consensus continues to elude the group.
India has done a bit of lobbying with other members of the NSG as well. Foreign minister S M Krishna met his Canadian counterpart recently to discuss the issue, while sources said some of the countries had watered down their objections. But the elephant in the room was China's declaration to supply two extra nuclear reactors to Pakistan without the niceties of a waiver by the NSG. For the past couple of years, NSG has wrung its hands at the prospect. However, Beijing's rebuff of the concerns underlines the nuclear body's lack of wherewithal to act against the P-5 nation and the world's newest superpower. China, however, has not taken further steps to actually transfer nuclear equipment to Pakistan after its announcement. Mark Hibbs, senior associate at Carnegie Endowment, told TOI, "My intuition is many members hope the transaction would not happen because of Pakistan's political and economic difficulties. For that reason countries in the NSG are not inclined to press hard on this at this moment. While China reiterated its political will, in fact, on the ground it's not clear the transfer will actually happen." Pakistan, too, is not the country it was when the first of the Chinese reactors were built there.
The closest the NSG came to flagging its concern was a general remark that "Participating Governments exchanged information on positive and negative developments in the nuclear non-proliferation regime; they also focused on specific regions and countries of concern."
India, though outside the NSG, is not pushing on the China front. China remains an outlier when it comes to India's own membership to the NSG, and New Delhi wants Beijing to get off the bench. Be that as it may, India is pushing hard on entering the non-proliferation regimes.
In a recent speech at IDSA intended for this purpose, foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai had said, "In November 2010, India expressed interest in taking forward this engagement with the international community to the next phase of seeking membership of the four export control regimes NSG, MTCR, Australia Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement we are aware that there are regime specificities. Each regime has its own membership criteria, control lists and methodology of work."
India inches closer to NSG membership - The Times of India