India's NSG bid was a mistake. Modi's US visit made it worse

As the NSG saga unfolds in India, political battle lines are drawn on what, if anything, went amiss.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sensing two crises on hand - Subramaniam Swamy’s diatribes and China’s open hostility at NSG plenary, gave a television interview for soft banter with an otherwise acerbic anchor. He played down Chinese conduct, hopefully, as deliberate dissimulation.

Chinese newspaper Global Times, tied to the government, wrote that India counting on US support forgot that “US is not the whole world”. Alleging India wanted national interests to override principles and calling it “spoiled” it added that “international adulation makes it (India) a bit smug in international relations”.

Finally, cautioning India not to throw tantrums, it advised that a nation with one fifth of China’s GDP should learn “how major powers play their games”.

Clearly, either Prime Minister Modi has learnt no lesson from his unwise direct intervention with President Xi Jinping at Tashkent, or he has internalised it, and decided to wait and strike, maintaining surface calm to retain international sympathy, and letting China be seen as a nonchalant bully.

Also read - NSG: Modi, Doval, Jaishankar have disgraced India

China hijacked the Seoul plenary and the debate that NSG has grappled with since it granted India the 2008 waiver on engaging non-NPT countries whose conduct otherwise conforms to NSG’s objectives.

By Indian calculation, 32 out of 48 members wanted a decision on criteria and Indian membership in Seoul. Global Times calculates 10 plus china opposing India.

However, NSG has no criteria for membership, being a non-treaty based group. It only has factors for participation - besides the NPT membership rider added in 2001, they are eight in number ranging from separation of civil and military programmes to safeguards agreement with IAEA and signing of Additional Protocol, which incidentally many NSG members have not yet signed.

The other factors are export controls and systems aligned to NSG guidelines as well as moratorium on nuclear tests and commitment to Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty, which currently is being stalled by Pakistan in Geneva, apparently with Chinese assent.

While India meets these stringent factors, and thus got the waiver in 2008 and should have been made a participant now, Pakistan is way out of line.

For China to link the two cases is akin to now India, having joined the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), linking pending Chinese application to those of Pakistan and DP Republic of Korea - two prized Chinese customers for clandestinely given missile technology.

Uncertainty about who will be next US president and unlikelihood of any newly elected president immediately focusing on India’s NSG membership added to the hurry. Opposition in India allege that the Modi government rushed NSG application without due diplomatic diligence.

However, it was during US President Barack Obama’s 2010 India visit that US support for India joining the four technology control regimes figured in the joint statement. Obama’s goodwill, his lapsing presidency and Modi’s investment in India-US relations, including finally addressing the nuclear liability issue, dictated the rush.

There were multiple flaws in the tactics adopted. First, statements in US saying “hesitations of history” were being abandoned were noted in Beijing as Indian drift into US corner. This explains the Global Times’ barbs.

Second, by combining the US trip with stopovers in Switzerland and Mexico - two lingering dissenters in NSG - the government and not the media unnecessarily brought focus on the NSG application, filed on May 12.

Third, institutional atrophy whereby the external affairs minister (partly due to her poor health) and the national security adviser, due to his other preoccupations, are part players, were not fully used to lobby the 48 members.

The Chinese counterpart of NSA Ajit Doval as special representative is Yang Jiechi, state councilor, and the real power linking government to the party on foreign policy. If correct feedback had been available that China would not relent, seeing the Indian application as a challenge to its predominance in Asia and its surrogate battle with US, Modi could have avoided intervening with President Xi.

Also read - Modi's NSG blunder has put India-China ties in danger

Finally, is it worthwhile expending political capital on NSG membership when India already has a waiver for nuclear commerce? Apparently so as only a member can ensure that future rule changes do not impinge on Indian interests.

India, having already got into MTCR, should next join the Wassenaar Arrangement and the Australia Group. China is not a member of either. That increases India’s negotiating power vis-à-vis China.

This is a balance of power game and India would need additional leverage by calibrating Chinese access to the Indian market, military assistance to ASEAN powers fearing China, naval build-up, and supporting democratic and liberal regimes in Asia-Pacific. Only time will tell whether, as Global Times opined, Modi can play the game as big powers do.