The China syndrome

C Uday Bhaskar

The China factor looms large in the current national debate over the merits and lack thereof in the  India-US July 18, 2005 (J18) civilian nuclear cooperation agreement — since translated into the 123 agreement — made public in early August. The debate has become emotive and battle lines are drawn. 

Those in favour believe that this is a good deal for India. Critics (the BJP and the Left) contend that it will shrink India’s sovereignty and make it a subaltern of the USA.

The more emotive and insidious extrapolation gathering momentum is the suggestion that the Left parties are taking the position they have so as to advance China’s strategic interests and that this is tantamount to treachery.

The opposite view is that the UPA government is selling out to the USA and the global MNC nexus. Clearly there is a need for a more objective and rational examination of the facts and the strategic underpinning at play.

Which countries and constituencies most opposed the J18 when it was first mooted? China, Pakistan and the non-proliferation lobby in the USA. China, India and Pakistan make for a complex nuclear missile triangle and the October 1964 Chinese nuclear test provided the trigger for what has ensued in the last 43 years.

Then, communist parties the world over — including the Indian Left — saw it as a triumph against US imperialism. But from a strategic perspective, India’s sovereignty was inexorably adversely impacted, since this was just two years after the ignominy of the 1962 Sino-Indian war.

India internalised this event; the birth of Bangladesh in 1971 altered the geo-political landscape of South Asia. China began to look upon Pakistan as a strategic balancer to India and Mao nurtured the Sino-Pak relationship. Pakistan was wooed by the USA and China, but the only beneficiary was the its military. Soon after the 1971 war, then Pakistani PM ZA Bhutto swore that his country would acquire nuclear weapons even if they had to eat grass — perhaps with Beijing’s support.

The major powers then introduced the discriminatory NPT and when India carried out its May 1974 Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE), the door to the nuclear club was firmly shut.

By the late 1980s there was enough evidence to suggest that Sino-Pak strategic cooperation in the nuclear missile domain had become more robust and India was at a disadvantage. US intelligence claimed China had transferred M11 and M9 missiles to Pakistan, though the Clinton administration remained ambivalent on what to do.

Emboldened by its nascent WMD capability, the Pakistan military embarked upon the steady low intensity conflict-internal security proxy war against India. Punjab and J&K were targeted and post Tiananmen, China was not unaware of the dynamic it had encouraged.

The May 1998 nuclear tests followed and then PM Vajpayee in his letter to the US President cited China as a source of Indian anxiety. The Indian Left maintained that Vajpayee’s imprudent act was detrimental to regional stability, but China’s nuclear weapons contributed to global stability.

Despite its ire over the letter, Beijing played a relatively positive role during the 1999 Kargil War. Pakistan’s reckless adventurism was not endorsed by China and it may be inferred that Beijing was doing a rethink about its WMD support to regimes such as those in Pakistan and North Korea. Since the July 2005 agreement was unveiled, China has been putting out mixed signals.

It has refrained from officially criticising the US-India deal, but has encouraged Pakistan to seek similar dispensation and has made veiled offers.

Hence the oft-repeated slogan that ‘the Sino-Pak relationship is deeper than the deepest oceans and higher than the highest mountains’. Recently, quasi-official Chinese dailies have criticised the US for seeking to change global non-proliferation rules to admit India — and India for having the temerity to want to become a great power.

Clearly Beijing adheres to the old Chinese proverb that a single mountain cannot be inhabited by two tigers. The empirical record shows that the deeper underpinning for Sino-Pak-North Korea cooperation is evidently to keep Asia unipolar by constricting the strategic space for both India and Japan.

When the heat and dust settles, the Indian Left and the BJP would do well to throw some light on this aspect of the 123 agreement. Whose interests will be ultimately advanced if this deal is delayed or scuttled?

The writer is a security analyst.