China is using Pakistan to block India's entry into nuclear suppliers group

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made successful visits to Switzerland, the US and Mexico. The main purpose behind this visit was to manage India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers group (NSG).

All these three states have agreed for India joining NSG. Such acceptance would go a long way in ensuring India's energy security and hence the excitement.

However, the glass still remains only half full. The real challenge is to ensure that China supports India's case. However, such a possibility looks bleak.

In order to appreciate why the membership of NSG is considered crucial it is bit important to recognise the nature of global disarmament initiatives and associated politics.

Also, it is important to put India in the context of overall global dynamics of disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control.

It would be interesting to note that India was responsible for the birth of the organisation called NSG.

The major powers in the world were shocked when realised that India conducted a successful nuclear during 1974 (Pokhran-I). This test made major powers realise that their nuclear weapon supremacy is under challenge.

Hence, to ensure the continuance of their nuclear supremacy these powers decided to look for options to control the spread of nuclear technology which could eventually lead to other countries making and testing nuclear bombs.

This gave birth to NSG, a multinational body concerned with reducing nuclear proliferation by controlling the export and re-transfer of materials that may be applicable to nuclear weapon development and by improving safeguards and protection on existing materials.

Presently, there are five nuclear weapon states and rest 43 NPT signatories are the members of NSG. Normally, the NSG group membership requires the signing of Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), which India has not fulfilled.

NSG is not the only arms-control (exports control) regime which has been put in place to stop/curtail the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology.

There are three more major exports control mechanisms which deal directly or indirectly with the issue of limiting the spread of nuclear technology. They are Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), Australia Group and Wassenaar Arrangement.

The Australia Group recommends procedure in regards to dealing with the tread of materials and equipment concerning chemical and biological weapons, and Wassenaar Arrangement has guidelines about Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies.

After the Indo-US nuclear deal became a reality in 2006, during further deliberations it was suggested that India should join all these groups.

India is also open to join these groups because their participation in such grouping is unlikely to hamper India's nuclear weapons programme in any way. However, some members of these groups have/had concerns about India joining.

These concerns are for various reasons. Some European and Scandinavian countries take a very absolute positions (holier than the cow) on issues concerning nuclear weapons and fail to understand (or no not want to understand) the reasons behind India going nuclear.

They fail to recognise the security challenges for state like India, which shares borders with two nuclear weapon states and one of them also uses terrorism as an instrument of state policy.

Also, some states fear that if India becomes members of these groups then India could have say in global nuclear trade.

For last eight to ten years Indian political, diplomatic and scientific establishment is making significant efforts to ensure that the opposition to India's candidature to join any of the global disarmament regimes come to an end.

This is an extremely challenging task because India has not signed and unlikely to sign the NPT.

Amongst the four important export control mechanism, India is yet to make serious attempts to join the Australia Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement.

Where India has focused more is NSG and MTCR. Now, MTRC appears to be a done deal with only official formalities remaining.

Ballistic missiles being one of the most suited platforms for nuclear weapon delivery, there have been various attempts to control spread of these technologies and Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR, 1987) is one amongst them.

MTCR particularly attempts to control the rockets and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) capable of delivering a payload of at least 500kg to a range of at least 300km. The overall approach of the MTRC regime is to develop a second line of defence with regard to nuclear proliferation.

However, there are very few takers to MTCR, total 34 in number and most of them are the states without having any missile capability! Now, India has joined this grouping.

To become a member of NSG, there is a need to have acceptance from all other members. Already, China which is an NSG member state has officially expressed reservations about India joining NSG.

Recently, Indian president had gone to China possibly to argue for India's case. However, China is putting forth the laughable condition that, if India is allowed to join NSG without signing NPT, then the privilege should be extended to Pakistan too, a country which has sold nuclear sectors globally!

In short, China is ensuring that India is not on the high table on nuclear trade.