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- May 26, 2013
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Away from the colourful optics that dominated Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s China visit, a quiet highstakes diplomatic initiative surfaced in Washington this past week. It should serve as a reality check for India on the limits of its strategic partnership with the US — especially when weighed against the might of Chinese economic prowess.
The initiative in question is the US-China nuclear cooperation pact, which was up for renewal this year. The Obama administration has quietly reached a deal with China and transmitted the agreement to the US Congress, where it has to only lie for the next two months unless both the Senate and the House pass a joint resolution of disapproval. If not, the assessment is that the deal will be operational by July 20, unless there is an adjournment beyond three days.
Running with the Hare…
The contradiction here is China’s non-proliferation record, having illicitly spawned nuclear weapons programmes in Pakistan, Iran and North Korea. This was also an issue in 1985 when the Reagan administration first negotiated the 30-year deal but could never get to operationalise it following Congressional resistance. The Tiananmen Square incident in 1989 froze any further progress.
To prove its credentials, China joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1992 and committed to cease nuclear cooperation with Iran. Subsequently, the Clinton administration extracted an explicit assurance to stop nuclear transfers to Pakistan, as a result of which the deal was finally operationalised in 1997. In 2004, China joined the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), accepting its stringent transfer guidelines that disallowed any nuclear commerce with non-NPT countries like Pakistan.
India has spent considerable diplomatic energy in the last decade to bare China’s flagrant violations by its continuing illicit nourishment of Pakistan’s nuclear programme. New Delhi mounted greater pressure after its own programme was aligned to the mainstream through the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Western powers, too, had ample evidence of continuing Chinese links with the Iranian programme, particularly after last year’s indictment of wanted Chinese businessman Li Fangwei alias Karl Lee on whom Washington has announced a $5-million bounty for his alleged role in supplying ballistic missile parts to Iran. Also, accounts by US diplomats exposing these links to the last detail made their way into the public domain through many of the WikiLeaks cables.
With a piling mountain of evidence nailing China as the largest proliferator among all nuclear powers, it was expected that the renewal in 2015 is going to be one gargantuan task for Beijing. From an Indian standpoint, the matter crossed acceptable levels when China, sidestepping the NSG, openly notified the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2010 that it plans to help construct the Chashma 3 and 4 reactors in Pakistan. The US vehemently opposed this as a violation of NSG guidelines. And yet, the reality of May 2015 is quite different.
As details of the deal begin to emerge at Senate hearings, the Obama administration’s principal argument is that it preferred engagement to isolation. The US President’s Non-Proliferation Assessment Statement on the agreement interestingly accepts that “China’s provision to Pakistan of reactors beyond Chashma 1 and 2 is inconsistent with Chinese commitments made when it joined the NSG in 2004”. But has China agreed to call off its plans?
…Hunting with the Hounds
There is no clarity on that, except the words of US assistant secretary of state for non-proliferation Thomas Countryman, who told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that by implementing the agreement, the US will be able to better “influence the Chinese government” in a way to advance non-proliferation objectives. The most ingenuous answer from Countryman on growing evidence of Chinese proliferation was an unconvincing persuasion to delink Chinese state entities from its “dynamic private sector” on which, he argued, Beijing had not demonstrated sufficient “political will” to clamp down.
But now that the new agreement provides for joint training of experts, he added, there will at least be requisite manpower to do the job. Incidentally, the new agreement gives China ‘advance consent’ to reprocess US-origin fuel in safeguarded facilities, same as what was agreed with India and before that with the EU. Behind this smokescreen of arguments is the reality of the US’ own business interests and compulsions. China has a deal for four AP 1000 Westinghouse reactors. Five more are expected, and the estimated business is to the tune of $25 billion. China has 27 nuclear plants and 24 are under construction. Its aim is to build 100 reactors by 2030.
The US fears that if it doesn’t move, then countries like Russia and France will benefit. As Countryman laid it out, “The proposed agreement would allow for future joint US-Chinese supply partnerships if China were to become a larger nuclear supplier in the future.”
What should worry India is not just the fact that China’s economic appeal could cloak its doublespeak on non-proliferation, but also how it has failed to emerge as a viable alternative in this business despite a way better nuclear deal that doesn’t even require periodic renewal. The China deal, in many ways, is a reminder of the time and, therefore, the credibility lost debating unforeseen issues even before the first dime was invested in this promising sector.
Why China, US growing bonhomie serves as a reality check for India - ET Blogs
The initiative in question is the US-China nuclear cooperation pact, which was up for renewal this year. The Obama administration has quietly reached a deal with China and transmitted the agreement to the US Congress, where it has to only lie for the next two months unless both the Senate and the House pass a joint resolution of disapproval. If not, the assessment is that the deal will be operational by July 20, unless there is an adjournment beyond three days.
Running with the Hare…
The contradiction here is China’s non-proliferation record, having illicitly spawned nuclear weapons programmes in Pakistan, Iran and North Korea. This was also an issue in 1985 when the Reagan administration first negotiated the 30-year deal but could never get to operationalise it following Congressional resistance. The Tiananmen Square incident in 1989 froze any further progress.
To prove its credentials, China joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1992 and committed to cease nuclear cooperation with Iran. Subsequently, the Clinton administration extracted an explicit assurance to stop nuclear transfers to Pakistan, as a result of which the deal was finally operationalised in 1997. In 2004, China joined the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), accepting its stringent transfer guidelines that disallowed any nuclear commerce with non-NPT countries like Pakistan.
India has spent considerable diplomatic energy in the last decade to bare China’s flagrant violations by its continuing illicit nourishment of Pakistan’s nuclear programme. New Delhi mounted greater pressure after its own programme was aligned to the mainstream through the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Western powers, too, had ample evidence of continuing Chinese links with the Iranian programme, particularly after last year’s indictment of wanted Chinese businessman Li Fangwei alias Karl Lee on whom Washington has announced a $5-million bounty for his alleged role in supplying ballistic missile parts to Iran. Also, accounts by US diplomats exposing these links to the last detail made their way into the public domain through many of the WikiLeaks cables.
With a piling mountain of evidence nailing China as the largest proliferator among all nuclear powers, it was expected that the renewal in 2015 is going to be one gargantuan task for Beijing. From an Indian standpoint, the matter crossed acceptable levels when China, sidestepping the NSG, openly notified the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2010 that it plans to help construct the Chashma 3 and 4 reactors in Pakistan. The US vehemently opposed this as a violation of NSG guidelines. And yet, the reality of May 2015 is quite different.
As details of the deal begin to emerge at Senate hearings, the Obama administration’s principal argument is that it preferred engagement to isolation. The US President’s Non-Proliferation Assessment Statement on the agreement interestingly accepts that “China’s provision to Pakistan of reactors beyond Chashma 1 and 2 is inconsistent with Chinese commitments made when it joined the NSG in 2004”. But has China agreed to call off its plans?
…Hunting with the Hounds
There is no clarity on that, except the words of US assistant secretary of state for non-proliferation Thomas Countryman, who told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that by implementing the agreement, the US will be able to better “influence the Chinese government” in a way to advance non-proliferation objectives. The most ingenuous answer from Countryman on growing evidence of Chinese proliferation was an unconvincing persuasion to delink Chinese state entities from its “dynamic private sector” on which, he argued, Beijing had not demonstrated sufficient “political will” to clamp down.
But now that the new agreement provides for joint training of experts, he added, there will at least be requisite manpower to do the job. Incidentally, the new agreement gives China ‘advance consent’ to reprocess US-origin fuel in safeguarded facilities, same as what was agreed with India and before that with the EU. Behind this smokescreen of arguments is the reality of the US’ own business interests and compulsions. China has a deal for four AP 1000 Westinghouse reactors. Five more are expected, and the estimated business is to the tune of $25 billion. China has 27 nuclear plants and 24 are under construction. Its aim is to build 100 reactors by 2030.
The US fears that if it doesn’t move, then countries like Russia and France will benefit. As Countryman laid it out, “The proposed agreement would allow for future joint US-Chinese supply partnerships if China were to become a larger nuclear supplier in the future.”
What should worry India is not just the fact that China’s economic appeal could cloak its doublespeak on non-proliferation, but also how it has failed to emerge as a viable alternative in this business despite a way better nuclear deal that doesn’t even require periodic renewal. The China deal, in many ways, is a reminder of the time and, therefore, the credibility lost debating unforeseen issues even before the first dime was invested in this promising sector.
Why China, US growing bonhomie serves as a reality check for India - ET Blogs
), Japan , ROK or even DPRK
