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East Asia and India’s civil nuclear odyssey

India is still a long way behind China in evoking, by its very rise, strong passions of one kind or another among the major powers of the world.

Yet, for India, the first consultations among the Foreign Ministers of East Asia Summit (EAS) and the first-ever ministerial meeting of a ‘denuclearisation’ group, both held in Singapore in late July, were not so nicely timed. These inform al meetings took place in the run-up to the India-specific Safeguards Agreement (ISSA), which the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) approved in Vienna on August 1.

Not only that. The EAS Foreign Ministers met just a few hours before the Lok Sabha was to vote on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s motion of confidence in the context of India’s civil nuclear energy deal with the United States. India was represented at this EAS meeting by Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma. And, the six-party ‘denuclearisation’ group, too, met in Singapore on the same day. India, of course, has no place in this group that deals with the Korean peninsula denuclearisation.

Lurking behind these meetings were the pros and cons of ISSA, still in the making then, and the likelihood of deliberations by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on the strategic implications of allowing nuclear commerce with India. The reasons for such a behind-the-scenes ‘India focus’ in Singapore were not far to seek.

The 16-member EAS consists of five NSG members: China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. Moreover, two other EAS members — Thailand and the Philippines — sit on the IAEA Board of Governors for the term of 2007 to 2008. In addition, they are also members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), which continues to insist on being the prime mover for designing and developing any new cooperative forum in East Asia.

On another strategic plane, the six-party ‘denuclearisation’ group is seized of the kind of issues that India is likely to be considered by the NSG for a possible exemption from. Equally significant is the tentative consensus within this group, which is still colloquially referred to as the Six-Party Talks (SPT), to graduate itself to a security forum with a special interest in Northeast Asia. This sub-region of East Asia is home to China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia (as a contiguous state) and the United States (as a “resident power,” with that status being a legacy of the Second World War).

Neither the EAS nor the SPT, both of which met at the level of foreign ministers, formally discussed either the still-formative ISSA or the NSG’s likely stance on India as of July 22. On the margins of these meetings, Mr. Sharma did lobby intensively, though, with the representatives of key NSG countries, some with an overlapping membership of the IAEA Board. Meeting U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meeting in Singapore on July 24, he received reassurances about Washington’s plans to try and push India’s case at the IAEA and the NSG.

At the same time, while U.S. officials told this correspondent that Dr. Rice acknowledged the “positive” moves by India in this context, Japan almost spoke for a number of NSG members in some behind- the-scenes remarks. In an interview to this journalist, the Japanese Spokesman, Kazuo Kodama, said: “This [India-specific case at the IAEA and the NSG] is the first of its kind. India is not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). And, India is a declared nuclear-weaponry state. So, somehow, we are confronted with an exceptional sort of a situation. This is a very important issue not only for India [but also] for the world, Japan too.”

Evident in this comment is the dilemma of a number of NSG members to think out of the NPT box and enter into nuclear commerce with India. The discriminatory NPT, by classifying the entire world into ‘the nuclear haves’ and ‘the nuclear have-nots’ insofar as the ‘legitimate’ possession of atomic weapons is concerned, has fossilised much of the thinking on non-proliferation.

An official Indian view of this order, reinforced by the argument about New Delhi’s “impeccable non-proliferation credentials,” has come up against a view within the NSG that the entire world is “confronted” by this Indian case.

The choice before the NSG now — exemplified by Japan’s dilemma over the efforts by a close ally, the U.S., to treat India as an “exceptional” case — will have resonance in many areas of New Delhi’s engagement with major East Asian powers. Two possibilities are on the horizon.

In the first scenario, India may, with a suitable NSG nod, emerge as a truly “exceptional state” in the existing non-proliferation domain in East Asia. This is possible, only if U.S. allies like Japan as also Australia and South Korea in the Greater East Asian region, no less than China and Russia as powers more autonomous of Washington, endorse robust nuclear commerce with India.

The second scenario of consequence to East Asia is that of a possible Indian failure or half-success in the NSG. Should this happen, it will be a reflection on the political will and lobbying dynamism of the U.S., given its reassurances to India on these two counts. It is also possible, of course, that India’s refusal to settle for something less than “a clean and unconditional waiver” from the NSG guidelines on nuclear commerce may bring about this scenario.

Two lines of thought, with direct interest to India in this emerging context, are known to diplomats in East Asian circles. The NSG’s status as a cartel, different from the IAEA’s high standing within the United Nations’ system, will leave the nuclear suppliers in Greater East Asia with individual choices about India, should it fail to a get the NSG’s nod. An equally important strand of thought, derived from China’s example, will also be relevant to India in the emerging situation. A few years ago, China had enacted a key domestic law, an anti-secession measure, to ensure that the non-sovereign territory of Taiwan stays under Chinese sovereignty in perpetuity. This is seen, in some East Asian diplomatic circles, as Beijing’s answer to “the Taiwan Relations Act” of the U.S., which is said to have committed Washington to some form of “defence” of that non-sovereign territory. Chinese sources, of course, maintain that Taiwan belongs to China, regardless of whether the recent anti-secession law was required.

Extrapolate the Chinese ‘model’ to the Indian situation. And, one sees that New Delhi can perhaps hope to enact a law to thwart or meet any intrusive attempts by the U.S. or other NSG members to influence India’s strategic and civilian nuclear domains.

With India’s civil nuclear odyssey having raised a lot of interest in Greater East Asia, especially among the NSG members and IAEA members in the region, Pakistan has tried to spoil India’s potential party. On the eve of the IAEA’s ISSA consensus, a top Pakistani official, now on a visit to Singapore, told this correspondent that Pakistanis could not be singled out as nuclear “proliferators” ineligible for treatment similar to India’s. “The list of proliferators is long” indeed, he maintained, referring to countries. For some time now, Pakistan has shown keenness to get a civil nuclear deal on the lines of India’s or scuttle, if possible, New Delhi’s bid.

The East Asian NSG members are now bombarded with a lot of rhetoric on India’s “exceptional” status, and this civil nuclear issue can help determine their attitude towards New Delhi’s place in any long-term regional security order. The existing ARF, with a large membership, is hardly suited as a major security forum. The SPT, with its initial nuclear non-proliferation agenda, and the Australian proposal of an Asia Pacific Community are two potential fora for a new East Asian order. While India is not in the SPT, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has explicitly given India a pride of place in his vision of an Asia Pacific Community.

Central to any such future order will be the relative places of the U.S. and China. A strand of argument by a U.S.-based scholar Steve Chan, with some echo in East Asia, is that “one would not expect Beijing to engage in an arms race or a competitive alliance aimed at the U.S.” at this stage.

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