【7.6 outlook india】Actors, Reactors

欣慰蔚

【标题】Actors, Reactors
【时间】2010年7月6日
【网站】http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?265989
【正文】

Chinese Chequer

China
Wants to give two nuclear reactors to Pakistan—to help it tide over the energy crisis, but also to portray itself as Pakistan’s all-weather friend, hyphenate India and Pakistan, challenge US might.

The United States If it stops the nuke deal, Pakistan could undermine Obama’s effort to stabilise Afghanistan. If it allows it, Obama’s non-proliferation agenda suffers, tacitly accepts China as its equal.

Pakistan
Since the US refused an India-like deal to Islamabad, it’s conveying it has China to turn to. The deal allows it to establish parity with India, also helps it tide over the energy crisis.

India
Can’t stop the deal, hopes others will. It will have to figure out a strategy to tackle China’s assertion, America’s decline— and the growing differences between them.

India has got its first taste of what China could mean as a global power. In a move fraught with grievous implications for South Asia, the non-proliferation regime and American outreach, Beijing plans to give two more nuclear reactors to Pakistan. This decision overrides the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (nsg) rule barring its members from conducting nuclear commerce with those countries which are not signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (npt). Neither Pakistan nor India are npt-compliant, but the nsg, in 2008, allowed its members to conduct nuclear trade with India. China’s decision consequently provides to Pakistan what the nsg rule disallows, thereby turning on its head principles and norms of global politics.

The complex political game China is playing through its nuclear pact with Pakistan requires scrutiny, irrespective of the stance the nsg ultimately adopts towards Beijing’s decision. For one, the China-Pakistan nuclear transaction has interrupted the smooth journey that New Delhi and Beijing have been enjoying following their successful cooperation at the Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen late last year. As the upa government underplays the import of the China-Pakistan deal, New Delhi’s strategic community is palpably perturbed. Says former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal, “The Chinese decision is an attempt to tilt the strategic balance in Pakistan’s favour; it’s also indicative of its growing economic and political muscle in the world.”

The Chinese nuclear gameplan seeks to achieve several objectives. One, China wants to reaffirm its position as Pakistan’s “all-weather” friend. It provided Islamabad two nuclear reactors when the US refused. Two, by supporting Pakistan’s quest for “peaceful use of nuclear energy”, Beijing attempts to correct the strategic imbalance in South Asia caused by the US-Indo nuclear deal. In other words, it is inserting the hyphen between India and Pakistan that the US had taken out.  Three, it’s an assertion of its might in the global arena, akin to throwing the gauntlet down to America and thereby putting itself on par with it.

It is widely expected that Beijing would at least inform the nsg of its decision to sell the reactors to Pakistan. In addition, China has two other options—it could either seek an India-like waiver for Pakistan or simply ignore the nsg on the grounds that the sale of two reactors were agreed upon (wrong, though, it is) before it entered the nsg in 2004. At the time of writing, Beijing was keeping its cards close to the chest even as the nsg convened to meet in New Zealand.

Whichever way you look at it, the pressure is on the US. Should it choose to steadfastly oppose the China-Pakistan deal, it would be accused of hypocrisy as it had deployed its formidable clout to win the nsg waiver for India. If it opposes the China-Pakistan deal outright, it risks further stoking resentment in Pakistan, which would imperil President Barack Obama’s plan to stabilise Afghanistan and then withdraw next year. Conversely, a support, tacit or otherwise, would undermine Obama’s agenda of strengthening the non-proliferation regime, particularly as Pakistan’s record on that count has been deplorable.

But in the long term, nothing will be as perilous for the US as China cocking a snook at its opposition and giving Pakistan two reactors. This will not only raise China’s stock in Islamabad but also establish Beijing’s global ascendancy, as it would be perceived to have pushed through the deal in the face of US opposition. America could go in for a grand bargain, say, over Iran—but even then the decline in its clout will be registered. Expect China to conjure up issues for throwing a challenge to the US in the future.

This is why former foreign minister Yashwant Sinha says India should have made its displeasure known. A quiescent approach doesn’t impress a power such as China. The problem, as Sinha says, is that “India seems to have tied itself in knots by signing the nuclear deal with the US”.

India has tried to put a brave face saying the deal doesn’t affect it. But this is because, as South Block officials admit, India can’t stop the deal as it isn’t an nsg member. “It’s a matter between China and the nsg members,” a senior Indian diplomat said. They also say the Chinese reactors this time are for peaceful purposes, in contrast to the clandestine nuclear cooperation between Beijing and Islamabad in the past, which most analysts say enabled Pakistan to acquire its nuclear muscle. “If we could live with all the proliferation that was going on for years, then why should we do a song and dance over two reactors,” an mea official told Outlook.

Such talk is more a case of taking a pragmatic approach. India can’t stop China from doing what it wants. New Delhi is also a victim of its own rhetoric—it has been repeatedly claiming to have embarked on the path of strengthening ties with China and Pakistan. Critics are bound to ask Indian leaders why they are then protesting over reactors aimed at helping Pakistan tide over its energy crisis?

The China-Pakistan nuclear deal offers an apt testimony to the fluid global situation. There’s America, pressed to retain its supremacy, its confidence still smarting under the blows of the economic recession and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. On the other side is China, riding its economic and military growth to flex its muscles. The two nations will increasingly find themselves placed in adversarial positions, as their interests diverge and as each tries to establish its global authority. India and Pakistan have been pulled into the vortex of this game. It will require a great leap of imagination for New Delhi to manage the fallout of the China-America conflict. The China-Pakistan deal is just the opening gambit.

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