The Boston Globe
China and India on verge of nuclear deal It would enable buying, exchange of technology
By Jehangir S. Pocha, Globe Correspondent | November 20, 2006
BEIJING -- China and India are poised to sign a civilian nuclear cooperation deal during President Hu Jintao's four-day state visit to the South Asian giant that begins today, Indian officials said yesterday, similar to the recent agreement between the United States and India.
The deal would foster the exchange and purchase of nuclear technology between the two emerging Asian powers, and is expected to be announced in a joint statement at the end of Hu's visit on Thursday, according to two officials familiar with the impending accord who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Chinese nuclear specialists are in India conducting meetings with Indian counterparts, one of the officials said.
While the exact terms of the potential China-India nuclear agreement have not been finalized, they are expected to be similar to the terms of the civilian nuclear agreement India concluded with the United States on July 18 last year, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India visited Washington.
That deal also was announced in the joint statement the two sides issued at the end of Singh's visit, and gives India access to high-tech nuclear technology it was denied previously.
If China and India enter into a nuclear cooperation agreement, it will mark a new stage in the increasing competition between China and the United States for India's friendship.
President Bush branded China a "strategic competitor" as soon as he came to office in 2001. Since India's burgeoning economy and muscular military can tip the balance of power in Asia, over the last year the United States and China have been trying to build closer ties with India, said Sun Shihai, deputy director of the Institute for Asia Pacific Studies at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
"The US always said it wants to use India to balance China," Sun said. "China feels it needs to engage India more [and] develop some kind of Russia-China-India cooperation" that can balance US hegemony. "So there is some kind of competition happening."
The White House's July 2005 decision to enter into civilian nuclear cooperation was widely seen as a critical step in attracting India into the US orbit.
India and Pakistan had conducted tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998 and refused to join the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty, so the global community, led by the United States, had denied them formal recognition as nuclear power states. This limited both countries' ability to procure the latest nuclear technology.
Bush's willingness to provide India with new civilian nuclear technology -- while refusing to do the same with India's archrival, Pakistan -- was widely seen as a de facto acceptance of India as a nuclear weapons state.
Initially, China had criticized the Indo-US deal and said it violated international nonproliferation principles. India and China had fought a brief but bitter war in 1962, and New Delhi had pointed to the threat it faced from a nuclear-armed China when it conducted its nuclear tests in 1998.
But Sun said Hu persisted in repairing ties with India, and an official in New Delhi knowledgeable about the nuclear negotiations with China said the nuclear deal would largely be the fruit of Hu's efforts.
"We had been talking to the Chinese for a while but China's military, foreign ministry, and defense ministry had all been against the deal" the official said. "Hu and the Communist Party were the ones pushing it through, and they seem to have taken control of China's India policy."
On the Indian side, it was Mayankote Kelath Narayanan, Singh's national security adviser, who brokered the deal, the official said.
One reason many Indian officials want a deal with China is that they believe it will restore some balance to India's foreign policy.
"Traditionally, India's always been nonaligned and had an independent foreign policy," said an official in New Delhi familiar with the negotiations. "Recently, India had been moving very close to the US and with this deal India will become equidistant between the US and China."
India is also worried that the deal Bush signed with Singh still needs to be ratified by the US Congress. "One reason we went for the Chinese offer is that we think the final [nuclear cooperation] bill Bush signs, after all the amendments from Congress tags onto it, will not be acceptable to India," said a senior Indian intelligence official.
Although the Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill supporting nuclear cooperation with India last Friday, Singh has said the process of reconciling the Senate and House bills could end up changing the original terms of the pact he signed with Bush. For example, the Senate bill added a stipulation that would cease nuclear supplies to New Delhi if it did not cooperate "fully and actively" in helping to contain Iran's nuclear program. India has close energy and defense ties with Tehran.
Another factor is that just as China apparently hopes its warming ties with India will draw India away from the United States, India hopes closer relations with China will dilute Beijing's close relationship with Pakistan. Over the last two years, China had indeed cooled ties with Pakistan. While Hu is also expected to sign nuclear agreements with Pakistan when he goes there straight after his India visit, "the Pakistanis will get much much less than what they want," an Indian official said.
(c) Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
-- What a country! Part Silicon Valley, Part Stone Age. - Steve Hamm on India in his book 'Bangalore Tiger'