At the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in Tashkent, Modi is likely to have a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, a day ahead of the NSG plenary meeting at Seoul.
Half-a-century after a peace agreement in the Uzbekistan capital of Tashkent ended the India-Pakistan war, the central Asian city will again witness a crucial diplomatic exercise over the next 48 hours.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will try to prevail over the Chinese leadership to support India’s bid for the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) there now.
Modi will attend the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in Tashkent, where he is likely to have a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, a day ahead of the NSG plenary meeting at Seoul.
The plenary will lay out the criteria for allowing new members into the elite club. Officials here are, however, keeping their fingers crossed, saying success is not guaranteed. At the same time, they said it should not be interpreted as a foreign policy failure. “If India sees an opportunity, she should be prepared to seize it, even if there are risks,” they said. On Sunday, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj told the media that she was hopeful India would become a member. She said China was not against letting India in.
Even as the US once again made a strong pitch for India’s inclusion into the elite club, China, on Tuesday, justified its objections and defended Pakistan’s nuclear record, asserting that it deserves the same consideration as India.
“We did not target any country -- India or Pakistan. We only care about the non-proliferation treaty (NPT),” said Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying. She reiterated that admission of new members was not on the agenda of the Seoul meeting. She said that NSG members should stay focussed on whether the criteria should be changed and whether non-NPT members should be admitted to the NSG.
Foreign secretary S Jaishankar is likely to travel to Seoul to supervise India’s diplomatic efforts for the NSG membership. Amandeep Singh Gill, in-charge of the disarmament and international security division, is already in Seoul to “garner” support.
Over the past weeks, India has been deliberately soft-pedalling China and avoiding touching its raw nerves. There was no mention of the South China Sea in the last India-US joint statement and no reference to “freedom of navigation” in Swaraj’s press conference.
Further, India is not also raking up the proliferation record of Pakistan, clarifying that it does not object to any country joining the NSG on merit.
In an unusual move, China’s state media on Tuesday made a direct case for Pakistan’s inclusion in the NSG. “China and other countries are opposed to NSG including India while excluding Pakistan, because it means solving India’s problem but creating another bigger problem. If India joins hands with Pakistan to seek NSG membership, it seems more pragmatic than joining alone,” said the article in Global Times, titled ‘China no barrier to India joining NSG’.
“If the US is sincere about supporting India’s membership, it should not just cast its eyes on India’s nuclear market. It should solve India’s ‘nuclear status’ first, so as to eradicate the contradictions between India and the existing international nuclear non-proliferation mechanism,” it said.
Over the past few days, the US has launched a campaign to get India into the NSG, with both president Barack Obama and secretary of state John Kerry requesting all 48 members to fall in line. Swaraj has personally spoken to 23 foreign ministers
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