NSA confirms China's NSG hostility to govt

NEW DELHI: While the Manmohan Singh government and Congress may consider it politik to wink at China's opposition to the nuclear waiver, India's giant neighbour poses a stiff geo-political challenge as it relentlessly seeks to contain and possibly cap the rise of a regional rival on the world map.

During his just-concluded visit, Chinese foreign minister Yang Jeichi had feigned surprise over reports of China trying to scuttle the waiver and the government — though conveying its displeasure in private — has taken the position that Beijing was part of the consensus at the Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting at Vienna.

But there was no such diplomatic niceties at work when National Security Advisor M K Narayanan reported to the Union Cabinet on Thursday that China was virtually the last man standing against India as all other objectors fell in line one by one. It required considerable effort by both New Delhi and Washington to get Beijing to change its position.

What perhaps forced China to withdraw the hand it had so impetuously shown was that it did not want to be seen as the only NSG member styming the waiver which would allow India to re-engage in nuclear cooperation with the rest of the world. Though China's support was never taken for granted, its decision to step out in the open had surprised the government.

The NSA has earlier made known the government's unhappiness with China's role at the NSG and his reporting to the Cabinet only confirmed this assessment. It's now quite clear that foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee's articulation that he would like to go by Yang's denial and China being part of the consensus at NSG is essentially a move to defuse tensions and look ahead.

Congress has also adopted a similar response to questions over whether Sonia Gandhi chose not to meet Yang, saying that the issue was best handled by the foreign ministry. The perils of Chinese double-speak seem to have sunk in even though some commentators had warned that Sonia's visit to Beijing, on the invitation of the Chinese government, for the Olympics could have been avoided.

It was the second time within a year that Sonia visited China where she also met senior Chinese leaders. Apart from her family, she was accompanied by minister of state for external affairs Anand Sharma. It was precisely because of the unpredictability over China's stance at NSG that the visit was seen to be fraught with risk even as Beijing chose to fete Sonia.
After the events at Vienna, it is evident that india need to be wary of China's moves to keep it confined to a South Asia orbit. Here too, the advocacy of a waiver for Pakistan shows that Beijing feels the need to keep India check-mated in its immediate neighbourhood even as it views a burgeoning India-US partnership as an unwelcome development.

There is a reluctance to allow India, seen by China as a smaller neighbour with scruffy shoes, into the exclusive members only environs of the nuclear club. It spells enhanced rivalry while both nations aver that "the world is big enough for both of us". As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself told colleagues after a meeting with the Chinese leaders last year, the truth of the pudding lies in its eating.