Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Blind man's bluff
K. Subrahmanyam
August 16
The US Democratic Party's national convention has indulged in a massive exercise of willing suspension of disbelief while drafting its non-proliferation policy. The party's document says, "We must work with every country to tighten export controls, stiffen penalties and beef up law enforcement and intelligence sharing. That way we can make absolutely sure that a disaster like the A.Q. Khan black market network, which grew out of Pakistan's nuclear programme, can never happen again. We must also take steps to reduce tension between India and Pakistan and guard against the possibility of their nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands."
There is no mention of China's proliferation to Pakistan and Chinese weapon design being recovered in Libya. Neither are West European countries such as Britain, France, Germany and Switzerland, which were among the suppliers to Khan's black market network, mentioned nor how those countries are to be disciplined. While North Korea has been repeatedly cited as a source of future danger, there is no mention of the North Korea-Pakistan uranium enrichment-missile exchange arrangement. This is understandable because this took place during Bill Clinton's administration. Obfuscating China's central role in nuclear and missile proliferation is also a legacy of Clinton's tenure. So is the Indo-Pakistan hyphenation on the nuclear issue.
Declassified government documents confirm that as far back as 1983, the US was aware of the transfer to Pakistan by China of a design for a nuclear explosive device (The Pakistani nuclear programme, June 22, 1983, National Security Archives, Electronic Briefing Book No. 6). In 1994, Pakistan was supplied 5,000 ring magnets by China for running its centrifuges and this happened despite China's earlier promise to the US not to proliferate to Pakistan. If Pakistan needed ring magnets from China for operating its centrifuges where did Iran, North Korea and Libya get their ring magnets to operate their centrifuges?
Strangely enough, the Democratic Party's paper does not refer to the Senate Foreign Relations sub-committee report produced under the chairmanship of the party's presidential candidate, John Kerry, in 1992 on the affair of Pakistani Bank of Credit and Commerce International in which the relationship between that criminal bank, the CIA and Pakistani proliferation has been referred to. Though Khan confessed to his proliferation activity going back to 1987 and Senator Kerry has referred to the involvement of then CIA director William Casey and the BCCI in the proliferation the US administration (of both Clinton and Bush) have taken the stand that their intelligence agencies came to know about Khan's proliferation activities only some three or four years back. The US was running an expensive multi-billion dollar counter-proliferation campaign. Evidently, that did not produce any worthwhile results. Again, though Pakistanis had announced in their Senate in 1993 receipt of Chinese missiles, the US administration kept maintaining till 2000 that it was yet to make a determination on the missile transfer.
So, proliferation was a problem created primarily by China, supplemented by clandestine exports of nuclear plant and machinery by western European firms. The US looked away from these activities for well over two decades. Neither the Democratic Party nor the Republicans have been serious in halting proliferation by China and Pakistan. Not only was Khan's black market a disaster, but the way in which his entire proliferation activity in active collaboration with China for over two decades has been swept under the carpet by the US and other western powers is an even greater disaster.
At this stage, India should make it clear that the nuclear issue is not an India-Pakistan hyphenated issue. India conducted its 1974 nuclear test before it even knew about Pakistan's parallel attempt. It was meant to be China-specific. After 1980, India was aware of China's support to Pakistan through the transfer of nuclear weapons technology. Khan's proliferation activity makes it clear that Pakistan wouldn't have been able to sustain its weapons programme without help from China and western firms. Thus, the nuclear issue in South Asia is a triangular one of India-China-Pakistan. The Democratic Party must know that the Chinese weapon design was found in Libya and, therefore, there are risks of Chinese nuclear materials and know-how falling into the wrong hands either directly or through middlemen like Khan. The document also doesn't mention the risks of nuclear escalation in respect of Taiwan between China and the US in view of the latter's commitment to Taiwan's independence. There have been far more crises on account of Taiwan than because of Kashmir. The Chinese claim they went nuclear because of US nuclear threats on the Taiwan issue.
India and Pakistan are engaged in nuclear confidence-building. These CBMs are likely to make progress in terms of better communications between military and civilian leaderships, notification of missile tests, no more tests and such other measures. However, for India the Pakistani nuclear arsenal is only an extension of the Chinese one. India has also taken into account that none of the nuclear powers has been serious in fulfilling its obligations under the NPT. That situation will continue till the international community is able to develop a strict verification regime for the nuclear weapon powers. That they are not likely to permit.
© HT Media Ltd. 2004.