According the the latest reports, the US is asking China not to continue its assistance to Pakistan in the energy areas. Obviously this is a result of whispers in the Washington’s ear from quarters outside the USA. This thinking shows a bankruptcy of ideas and an intertia that has led to the total decimation of goodwill for America in this region of the world. Pakistan already is a nuclear power and under no circumstances will it reverse its programs. Any pressure on its energy programs are counter productive.
They call it Self Preservation: They say a clandestine program for survival has been billed as “proliferation”. Some call it Nuclear proliferation. It started after WW2 to Britain, France, and to Russia, and China and then Isreal. Pakistan developed an India specific defense capability. After a decade, no threats to anyone!
To help Pakistan meet its energy shortfall, the US has promised Pakistan cooperation in the energy field. This promise remains unfulfilled.
1) The US opposes the Iran Pakistan pipeline. Because of US opposition India has been reluctant to join the project.
2) The US forced the fledgling Pakistani government to halt the opposition to the Indian nuclear deal in the NSG and the IAEA. This allowed the NSP approval of India as a vendor to sail through.
3) The US had promised Reconstruction Opportunity Zones (ROZ) in the NWFP and Baluchistan so that goods and material could be exported to the US without tariffs. Currently Pakistan textile exporters to the US pay more tarrifs than Volvo producing Sweden.
4) The $650 million Aid to Pakistan has falied to produce any substantive project or omprovement in the lives of the Pakistanis. Under US law half the aid is pent on US consulting services etc. 25% of the $650 million is spent on administrative salaries and rent. The 25% which is left is handed over to the US Ambassador’s favorite US based NGO–where it is [promplty deposited back in US bank accounts.
The United States is well aware of Pakistan’s energy needs. President Bush promised the Pakistani leadership of assistance in the nuclear field. The US has opposed all of Pakistan’s efforts to fill its energy deficiet. It has not provided Pakistan help in WInd, Biogas, Solar, Geothremal and Tidal energy. There will be a huge backlash in Pakistan to the US opposition to the Pakistan-China nuclear deal.
Why? Survival! A.Q. Khan: For Pakistan he is “Einstein+ Openheimer”–a national hero called “saviour of Pakistan). 30,000 scientists participated in the Pakistani self-preservation program. Khan helped in the creation of the Pakistani bomb along with Indian, German, Australian, American brokers. Targeting only Khan increases Anti-Americanism.
WASHINGTON: The United States this week objected to Chinese plans to build two nuclear reactors in Pakistan near Chashma.
Senior Pakistani officials announced last month that China had agreed to build two additional reactors at Chashma, where Beijing has already built one nuclear power station and is erecting another. The earlier projects were formalized before China joined the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, the body that sets nuclear trade guidelines.
Nuclear Suppliers Group rules bar sales of sensitive nuclear technology and materials to nations, such as Pakistan, that have not joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and do not allow international monitoring of all their nuclear activities. Earlier this year, the group agreed to exempt India from the sales ban, opening the door for New Delhi to purchase civil nuclear technology from the France, Russia, the United States and others.
“The U.S. position is that cooperation on the construction of two new reactors, Chashma III and IV, would be inconsistent with the commitments China made at the time of its adherence to Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines in 2004,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Reynolds in correspondence this week to Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.). Reynolds was responding to a letter Markey wrote last month to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressing concern about the reactor deal.
“At that time, China’s representatives detailed in a statement China’s ongoing nuclear cooperation with Pakistan that would be ‘grandfathered’ upon China’s adherence; nothing in that statement permitted construction of reactors beyond Chashma I and II,” Reynolds stated.
“Any new cooperation, therefore, would require consensus approval by the NSG for an exception to the guidelines,” he continued. “Although Pakistan’s energy needs are real and increasing, we believe Pakistan’s proliferation record would make NSG consensus difficult where China to request an exception.” The News: Updated at: 0730 PST, Saturday, November 22, 2008. U.S. opposes Chinese reactor sales to Pakistan
The US rhetoric on the the so called nuclear proliferation coming from a country that helped the UK, France and Israel get nuclear weapons is hollow and reeks of discrimination against Pakistan. The executioners of Hiroshima and Nagasaki do not have a moral authority to criticize Pakistan’s nuclear record. The US Nuclear deal with India is a way of entrapping the Indians and making them feel good. By denying the Nuclear technology to Pakistan, the US knows that Pakistan already has access to much of it through China.
Markey praised the State Department opinion and referred to a multinational nuclear smuggling ring once led by top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
“Pakistan is responsible for more nuclear proliferation than any other single country; nuclear cooperation is off the table,” he said in a statement yesterday.
“There is no doubt whatsoever that international nonproliferation rules bar China from providing Pakistan with new nuclear reactors,” Markey added. “This is clear from a plain-language reading of the Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines, and I am very pleased that the Bush administration has agreed with this view.”
“China should not violate its international obligations by selling new nuclear reactors to Pakistan. The United States has clearly stated that such a sale would be against international nonproliferation rules, and I hope other countries stand up to deliver the same message,” he said. The News: Updated at: 0730 PST, Saturday, November 22, 2008. U.S. opposes Chinese reactor sales to Pakistan.
Pakistan already has a Nuclear Deal with China! India tried to raise expectations to portend failure! The US aid to Pakistan is ephemeral, self-centered and transactional. If the world is going to buy into “Change we can believe in”, the perception and reality of US-Pakistani relations has to change.
The relationship between China and Pakistan is of course a two way street. Pakistan is the only country in the world with which China has a Free Trade Agrement (FTA). The deals signed are not for the world pres, but for a long lasting relationship.
China has privately agreed to follow a “step-by-step” approach to fulfilling Pakistan’s aspiration for an expanded nuclear energy program, rather than sign an ambitious civil nuclear program of the kind recently struck between the U.S. and India, senior Pakistani and Western officials said on Thursday.
Private discussions are believed to have been held on expanded nuclear cooperation between Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari and Chinese leaders during Zardari’s four-day visit to China, which began Tuesday.
A senior Pakistani government official, familiar with discussions between Zardari and Chinese officials, claimed Thursday that China had agreed to “consider further nuclear power reactors to fulfill our needs. The relationship (on the nuclear issue) remains intact”. Speaking to CBS News on condition of anonymity, the official added, “there is now a complete understanding on our future cooperation”. (CBS) The following was written by CBS News’ Farhan Bokhari, reporting from Islamabad.
China helped Pakistan in developing its Nuclear program. though Pakistan’s program is Uranium based–different that that of China. Pakistan already has a nuclear deal. China already has setup two nuclear power plants Chasnupp 1 (300 MW) and Chasnupp 2 (300 MW). The Chashma Nuclear Power Plant is located at Chashma, Punjab, Pakistan. It consists of Chashma Nuclear Power Plant I (CHASNUPP-1) and Chashma Nuclear Power Plant II (CHASNUPP-2). CHASNUPP-3 (600MW under construction) and CHASNUPP-4 (2000 MW planned to be completed before 2030) are in the planning stages. China does not make any 1000 MW plants, so the Chasnupp 4 and Chasnupp 5 etc will be much larger plants beginning in 2010. A series of these will be constructed within the next five years. However this will not done be done under floodlights and hoopla. Pakistan’s Nuclear deal with the USA is like the American Nuclear deal with Israel. The Chinese help to the Pakistanis is like the assistance the US provided to Britain and then to France to help their Nuclear programs. Pakistan is not the proliferator of Nuclear weapons, it takes the brunt of the blame for nonsensical and vindictive blame game.
