NEW DELHI – India’s reported outreach to China on its bid to join theNuclear Suppliers Group during the bilateral Disarmament andNon-Proliferation Dialogue in Beijing is a significant development, comingas it does in the wake of efforts to reboot relations between the two Asiangiants.
Officially, the focus of the fifth round of the dialogue on Tuesday wasglobal security and disarmament in outer space, but reports suggest thatIndia engaged China on dropping its objections to New Delhi’s membership ofthe elite club controlling access to nuclear technology.
It is now becoming apparent that India is pursuing a new path in its tieswith China under foreign secretary, Vijay Gokhale, an old China hand whoplayed a crucial role in resolving last year’s military standoff at Doklamwhile serving as the envoy in Beijing.
This is reflected in India’s new stance on issues such as Tibet that havethe potential to irk China. Beijing too has displayed some amount offlexibility in its position on issues that are crucial to India.
There have also been suggestions that India and China, with their massiveeconomies, could play a greater role in shaping debate on global issues asthe US cedes its leadership position. Provided the two countries can buildon such developments, there could be greater scope for cooperation betweenthem.
It must be remembered that China is not the only country opposing India’sapplication to join the NSG. However, getting China to change its positioncould certainly help to swing the other naysayers such as Turkey andIreland. India also believes its hands have been strengthened by itsmembership of three key multilateral export control regimes, the MissileTechnology Control Regime, the Wassenaar Arrangement for controls on dualuse technologies and the Australia Group.
China has proposed a two-step approach for making countries that haven’tsigned the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty members of the NSG.
This involves forging a universal formula for such countries and thentaking up their applications. Detractors say this was done with an eye tohelping Pakistan gain membership of the NSG alongside India.