NEW DELHI // India is engaged in a flurry of diplomacy as it tries to gain entry into a 48-nation group that could supply the country with state-of-the-art nuclear technology to quench its energy needs.
The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) will meet in Seoul, South Korea, on Friday. India has been lobbying states to support its membership application, which was submitted three weeks ago.
China, a major NSG power, indicated on Monday that it was not in favour of placing India’s bid on the upcoming agenda.
“In Seoul this year, there is no such topic,” spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, Hua Chunying, said.
A failure to enter the NSG will be a blow to prime minister Narendra Modi, who has personally spearheaded the effort to secure India’s membership.
But analysts are not expecting India’s bid to be accepted, and question if the government should be expending diplomatic capital to this end at all.
Ironically, the NSG was formed in response to a secret nuclear bomb test by India in 1974. Its mission is to “contribute to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons”.
Apart from the five major powers with nuclear weapons – the US, the UK, France, Russia and China – the NSG includes states that have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a commitment to relinquish nuclear arms.
Beijing has pointed out that India has not signed the NPT, but India argues that the treaty is discriminatory because it does not force the Big Five nuclear states to give up their weapons.
In 2008, India received an “NSG waiver”, permitting New Delhi to purchase certain nuclear technologies even though it is not a member of the group. The waiver was based on India’s pledge that it would not share sensitive nuclear information with other countries and that it would maintain its moratorium on testing nuclear weapons.
“Instead of speaking about criteria, one should speak about our credentials,” Sushma Swaraj, India’s foreign minister, said. “Our track record should be discussed. Whatever commitments and undertakings we gave prior to receiving the waiver in 2008, we have kept.”
Joining the nuclear group would give India a chance to upgrade its nuclear power plants. Nuclear power features prominently in India’s quest to generate 40 per cent of its energy from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030. Nuclear energy currently accounts for only 5.7 gigawatts of the country’s power capacity, but India hopes nuclear plants can generate up to 63 gigawatts by 2030.
The US, UK and Russia have thrown their weight behind India’s NSG membership bid.
British prime minister David Cameron and Russian president Vladimir Putin have both expressed their approval of India’s entry into the group, while president Barack Obama also reiterated his support during Mr Modi’s trip to the US two weeks ago.
Earlier this month, Mr Modi visited Switzerland and Mexico – both members of the NSG – to ensure their support if India’s application comes up for review.
But China’s REFUSAL to discuss India’s membership comes as a significant stumbling block, given that consensus is required to admit any new states. But India’s diplomatic machine is in overdrive.
Foreign secretary S Jaishankar visited China on in June to sway its leadership. Mr Modi will also be meeting Chinese president Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on Thursday.
TP Sreenivasan, a former Indian diplomat who represented his country at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, argued that joining the NSG would bring no great benefits to India.
The NSG is only one of several informal groups of states that are pledged to control nuclear exports. India will formally become a member of another such group, the Missile Technology Control Regime, later this year.
Rather, given its NSG waiver and ongoing deal with the US to import nuclear energy technology, India should work out its thicket of laws governing liability in case of nuclear accidents, Mr Sreenivasan said.
ssubramanian@thenational.ae
