India and NSG-News, Updates and Discussions.
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First batch of nuclear fuel pellets from Russia to arrive in India in July-end
New Delhi: The first batch of nuclear fuel pellets — over 60 tonnes — to be supplied to India by Russia is expected to be delivered by the end of July, the Russian suppliers have said.
The pellets are expected to be delivered 26-29 July, said officials from TVEL, the fuel company of Russian atomic power corporation Rosatom.
The fuel is meant for the pressurized heavy-water reactors already functioning in India.
"Technical acceptance of the first batch of pellets to be supplied in 2016 to the Indian Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC) has been successfully completed at the Machine Engineering Plant of TVEL," Andrew Pyrinov, head of the department of technical control of the Machine Engineering Plant, told IANS.
Representational image, Getty images
Technical Acceptance is the procedure to check if there are any defects in products. The extensive programme involves checking of all technical documentation by the buyer, which in this case is India.
The programme included the presence of NFC representatives during the production of fuel pellets and storage of finished products.
Pyrinov said the acceptance was completed without any inquiries from the Indian side.
A long-term contract for the supply of fuel pellets for the Indian nuclear power plants was concluded on February 11, 2009 in Mumbai between JSC TVEL and the Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India.
The Russian company was the first to sign a long term contract to supply nuclear fuel to India's PHWR reactors after the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) had removed the restrictions on the supply of uranium, reactors and technology to the India on 6 September, 2008.
The first delivery of nuclear fuel to the Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad (India) took place in spring 2009. The fuel pellets made in Elektrostal, Russia are used in Indian nuclear reactors.
The Nuclear Fuel Complex was established 1971 as a major industrial unit of Department of Atomic Energy, for supplying nuclear fuel to the plants.
http://www.firstpost.com/world/firs...a-to-arrive-in-india-in-july-end-2869082.html
New Delhi: The first batch of nuclear fuel pellets — over 60 tonnes — to be supplied to India by Russia is expected to be delivered by the end of July, the Russian suppliers have said.
The pellets are expected to be delivered 26-29 July, said officials from TVEL, the fuel company of Russian atomic power corporation Rosatom.
The fuel is meant for the pressurized heavy-water reactors already functioning in India.
"Technical acceptance of the first batch of pellets to be supplied in 2016 to the Indian Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC) has been successfully completed at the Machine Engineering Plant of TVEL," Andrew Pyrinov, head of the department of technical control of the Machine Engineering Plant, told IANS.
Representational image, Getty images
Technical Acceptance is the procedure to check if there are any defects in products. The extensive programme involves checking of all technical documentation by the buyer, which in this case is India.
The programme included the presence of NFC representatives during the production of fuel pellets and storage of finished products.
Pyrinov said the acceptance was completed without any inquiries from the Indian side.
A long-term contract for the supply of fuel pellets for the Indian nuclear power plants was concluded on February 11, 2009 in Mumbai between JSC TVEL and the Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India.
The Russian company was the first to sign a long term contract to supply nuclear fuel to India's PHWR reactors after the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) had removed the restrictions on the supply of uranium, reactors and technology to the India on 6 September, 2008.
The first delivery of nuclear fuel to the Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad (India) took place in spring 2009. The fuel pellets made in Elektrostal, Russia are used in Indian nuclear reactors.
The Nuclear Fuel Complex was established 1971 as a major industrial unit of Department of Atomic Energy, for supplying nuclear fuel to the plants.
http://www.firstpost.com/world/firs...a-to-arrive-in-india-in-july-end-2869082.html
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Talk to me about this after ruling by international court on South Philipines sea dispute.
Of course, in any case out of the 5 "self-proclaimed" legitimate powers,4 support us on NPT as well as UNSC seat. It is the only other teenager country who is insecure.
dadeechi
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What Modi wants from visit to SA
News / 06 Jul '16, 7:38pm
Sanjay Kapoor, Delhi
India’s bid for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group will be at the top of the agenda for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, writes Sanjay Kapoor.
When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits South Africa this week, the issue that will be of the greatest strategic importance in bilateral discussions from his perspective will be India’s candidature to become a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). The Indian Prime Minister will use his visit as an opportunity to lobby the South African Government to support India’s bid, which has been a top foreign policy priority for the Indian Government in recent months.
President Jacob Zuma and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. File picture: Manish Swarup. Credit: AP
At the recent NSG meeting in Seoul, India’s attempts to get into the 48 member Group were rebuffed. The NSG, which seeks to prevent nuclear proliferation by keeping a check on the export of material, equipment and technology that can lead to the making of a nuclear bomb, made it clear that they did not want to have a country that was not a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) or Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). India had got an exclusive waiver in 2008, but was keen to get into the Group to ensure its interests were protected.
The refusal of the NSG to accommodate India has come as a rude shock to the personalized foreign policy of India’s itinerant Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He had been on a whistle stop tour of five countries in seven days ranging from Qatar to Switzerland and Mexico, with Washington thrown in between, but failed to garner support from many other countries that had reservations on the issue of the NPT. Switzerland, which promised to back India during Modi’s visit to Berne, was found doing a volte face during the Seoul meet.
Most of the BRICS countries which include China, South Africa and Brazil, did not support India’s candidature. For this rejection, India has directed its ire at China. Immediately after the news of India’s failure emerged, India’s foreign office blamed “one country” for its discomfiture. Indian journalists who traveled to the South Korean capital were told that the country was backed by “consensus minus one,” which means that 47 out of 48 countries were for its inclusion and only China was holding out. A closer reading of the happenings suggests that at least 10 countries, including South Africa, had misgivings about India’s entry as they all felt it would create a wrong precedent.
Much before the Seoul plenary meet, diplomats from the dissenting countries in Delhi were quite candid about their opposition. They knew, too, that Switzerland was unlikely to play ball with India. The moot question then is why did the Indian government decide to push for NSG membership when clearly there was no consensus around their candidature? Why were they so hopeful? Commentators hint at miscalculation and misreading of global politics. Some blame the PM for being a victim of his own hubris. The truth is that India was banking too much on the US to change the nature of support in the 48 member group, remembering that the group was created at its behest to stop India from enlarging its nuclear weapons programme after it tested its nuclear bomb in 1974.
After that India managed to get a complete waiver at the NSG when it signed the civilian nuclear deal with the US. Quite evidently 2016 was different, as President Barack Obama refused to replicate his predecessor George W Bush’s aggressive diplomacy to get India in the NSG. Save for expressing pious words that New Delhi should get into the nuclear Group, it did not work the phones to get India in. Otherwise there would not have been a situation where, according to Chinese sources, ten countries opposed India’s entry. What has taken Indian diplomats by surprise is why the US did not really stick its neck out even when India had committed to purchasing six Westinghouse Nuclear reactors from the US. A US State Department official had hinted that the process to induct India had been initiated and it could be part of the Group before the end of 2016. To buttress this point, the NSG has announced that it would appoint a special envoy and the outgoing head of the Group, Rafael Grossi, to negotiate with all those countries that have inhibitions about inducting non-signatories of the NPT.
It is not that India was not expecting China to stonewall its membership. They had hoped that at the last moment they would back off to preserve bilateral gains that have accrued to both sides over the last few years. India’s trade with China exceeds US$70 billion. The Indian PM flew to Tashkent to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (Asia’s NATO), which was largely meant to beseech Chinese President Xi Jinping to make a “fair and objective assessment” of India’s NSG membership request. Seemingly the Chinese President was not impressed with Modi’s charm.
China has occupied the high moral ground by stating that those who haven’t signed the NPT should not become part of the group. And if indeed a process was being initiated then it should allow Pakistan too, which has also not signed the NPT and is a nuclear weapon state to join NSG.
It was China that provided, in a clandestine manner, technology and material to help Pakistan become a nuclear power in the 1990’s. Expectedly, Pakistan has taken credit for tripping up India’s chances. What did the Pakistanis do? They did not try to collect frequent flier miles like the Indians did. On the contrary, their foreign policy advisor, Sartaj Aziz, made 11 phone calls to members of the NSG, and their National Security Advisor cautioned the world about the dark US-India conspiracy to belittle China and Russia. The rest of the heavy lifting in the Seoul meeting was done by the Chinese who effectively closed the door on India - until it becomes a signatory of the NPT.
After this debacle, temperatures are rising in Delhi. There has been a campaign to boycott Chinese goods and suggestions are also coming from policy hawks to toughen the narrative towards Beijing, including confronting it in all possible theatres, including the South China Sea.
Even though Modi may be facing an uphill battle on NSG membership given China’s firm position on the matter, he will likely use the opportunity to lay out India’s case for NSG membership when he meets President Jacob Zuma this week.
http://www.iol.co.za/news/what-modi-wants-from-visit-to-sa-2042506
News / 06 Jul '16, 7:38pm
Sanjay Kapoor, Delhi
India’s bid for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group will be at the top of the agenda for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, writes Sanjay Kapoor.
When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits South Africa this week, the issue that will be of the greatest strategic importance in bilateral discussions from his perspective will be India’s candidature to become a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). The Indian Prime Minister will use his visit as an opportunity to lobby the South African Government to support India’s bid, which has been a top foreign policy priority for the Indian Government in recent months.
President Jacob Zuma and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. File picture: Manish Swarup. Credit: AP
At the recent NSG meeting in Seoul, India’s attempts to get into the 48 member Group were rebuffed. The NSG, which seeks to prevent nuclear proliferation by keeping a check on the export of material, equipment and technology that can lead to the making of a nuclear bomb, made it clear that they did not want to have a country that was not a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) or Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). India had got an exclusive waiver in 2008, but was keen to get into the Group to ensure its interests were protected.
The refusal of the NSG to accommodate India has come as a rude shock to the personalized foreign policy of India’s itinerant Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He had been on a whistle stop tour of five countries in seven days ranging from Qatar to Switzerland and Mexico, with Washington thrown in between, but failed to garner support from many other countries that had reservations on the issue of the NPT. Switzerland, which promised to back India during Modi’s visit to Berne, was found doing a volte face during the Seoul meet.
Most of the BRICS countries which include China, South Africa and Brazil, did not support India’s candidature. For this rejection, India has directed its ire at China. Immediately after the news of India’s failure emerged, India’s foreign office blamed “one country” for its discomfiture. Indian journalists who traveled to the South Korean capital were told that the country was backed by “consensus minus one,” which means that 47 out of 48 countries were for its inclusion and only China was holding out. A closer reading of the happenings suggests that at least 10 countries, including South Africa, had misgivings about India’s entry as they all felt it would create a wrong precedent.
Much before the Seoul plenary meet, diplomats from the dissenting countries in Delhi were quite candid about their opposition. They knew, too, that Switzerland was unlikely to play ball with India. The moot question then is why did the Indian government decide to push for NSG membership when clearly there was no consensus around their candidature? Why were they so hopeful? Commentators hint at miscalculation and misreading of global politics. Some blame the PM for being a victim of his own hubris. The truth is that India was banking too much on the US to change the nature of support in the 48 member group, remembering that the group was created at its behest to stop India from enlarging its nuclear weapons programme after it tested its nuclear bomb in 1974.
After that India managed to get a complete waiver at the NSG when it signed the civilian nuclear deal with the US. Quite evidently 2016 was different, as President Barack Obama refused to replicate his predecessor George W Bush’s aggressive diplomacy to get India in the NSG. Save for expressing pious words that New Delhi should get into the nuclear Group, it did not work the phones to get India in. Otherwise there would not have been a situation where, according to Chinese sources, ten countries opposed India’s entry. What has taken Indian diplomats by surprise is why the US did not really stick its neck out even when India had committed to purchasing six Westinghouse Nuclear reactors from the US. A US State Department official had hinted that the process to induct India had been initiated and it could be part of the Group before the end of 2016. To buttress this point, the NSG has announced that it would appoint a special envoy and the outgoing head of the Group, Rafael Grossi, to negotiate with all those countries that have inhibitions about inducting non-signatories of the NPT.
It is not that India was not expecting China to stonewall its membership. They had hoped that at the last moment they would back off to preserve bilateral gains that have accrued to both sides over the last few years. India’s trade with China exceeds US$70 billion. The Indian PM flew to Tashkent to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (Asia’s NATO), which was largely meant to beseech Chinese President Xi Jinping to make a “fair and objective assessment” of India’s NSG membership request. Seemingly the Chinese President was not impressed with Modi’s charm.
China has occupied the high moral ground by stating that those who haven’t signed the NPT should not become part of the group. And if indeed a process was being initiated then it should allow Pakistan too, which has also not signed the NPT and is a nuclear weapon state to join NSG.
It was China that provided, in a clandestine manner, technology and material to help Pakistan become a nuclear power in the 1990’s. Expectedly, Pakistan has taken credit for tripping up India’s chances. What did the Pakistanis do? They did not try to collect frequent flier miles like the Indians did. On the contrary, their foreign policy advisor, Sartaj Aziz, made 11 phone calls to members of the NSG, and their National Security Advisor cautioned the world about the dark US-India conspiracy to belittle China and Russia. The rest of the heavy lifting in the Seoul meeting was done by the Chinese who effectively closed the door on India - until it becomes a signatory of the NPT.
After this debacle, temperatures are rising in Delhi. There has been a campaign to boycott Chinese goods and suggestions are also coming from policy hawks to toughen the narrative towards Beijing, including confronting it in all possible theatres, including the South China Sea.
Even though Modi may be facing an uphill battle on NSG membership given China’s firm position on the matter, he will likely use the opportunity to lay out India’s case for NSG membership when he meets President Jacob Zuma this week.
http://www.iol.co.za/news/what-modi-wants-from-visit-to-sa-2042506
dadeechi
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SA backs India’s bid for full NSG membership
Politics / 08 Jul '16, 2:10pm
Shannon Ebrahim, Foreign Editor
Johannesburg - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took many by surprise when he thanked President Jacob Zuma for South Africa's support for India's bid for full membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group in his noon address to the media at the Union Buildings on Friday.
“I would like to thank President Zuma for South Africa’s support for India’s membership of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group. We know we can count on the active support of our friends like South Africa,” to which Zuma responded with a warm nod.
President of South Africa Jacob Zuma (L) shaking hands with Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi (R) during a welcoming ceremony at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. Narendra Modi is on a two-day official visit to South Africa, during which he will attend official talks with Jacob Zuma. EPA/GCIS/ELMOND JIYANE/HANDOUT. Credit: EPA
Modi a wizard of foreign policy
Even the Indian journalists who had traveled to South Africa to cover Modi's visit were caught off guard by the announcement, as South Africa had previously expressed its reservations about India's bid for full membership as it is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
India was recently unsuccessful in winning over unanimous support for its bid at the NSG meeting in Seoul. It was one of Modi's main priorities in his visit to South Africa to convince Zuma to back India's bid before the next NSG meeting in October.
Modi's plan was to use his one on one meeting with Zuma to secure South Africa's support. It seems Modi was successful with Zuma, as he has been in most of his lobbying efforts with foreign heads of state over the past six months as he has zigzagged the globe in a concerted effort to mobilize support for India's bid.
The reason why inclusion in the NSG is so important to India is that it makes access to nuclear technology and the purchase of nuclear material significantly easier and cheaper.
Pakistan has engaged in vociferous behind the scenes lobbying against India's bid, as this would create a double standard which seriously disadvantages other nuclear states. In order for India to succeed in achieving full membership in the 48 member group, all members will have to be unanimous in their decision to accept India.
It is highly unlikely that China will ever agree to India's admission given its steadfast opposition, which it says is based on a matter of principle.
An editorial in China's state-run Global Times said recently,”Since its foundation in 1975, all NSG members shall be NPT signatories. This has become the primary principle of the organisation. Now India wants to be the first exception to join the NSG without signing the NPT. It is morally legitimate for China and other members to upset India's proposal in defense of principles,” Referring to US backing for India's bid, the editorial stated, “U.S. backing adds the biggest impetus to India's ambition. By cozying up to India, Washington's India policy actually serves the purpose of containing China.”
http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/sa-backs-indias-bid-for-full-nsg-membership-2043398
South Africa endorses India's candidature to NSG
Friday 8 July 2016 15:28
Tshepo Ikaneng
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is engaging in bilateral talks with President Jacob Zuma at the Union Buildings.(SABC)
South Africa has endorsed India's candidature to become a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). The NSG seeks to prevent nuclear proliferation by keeping a check on the export of material, equipment and technology that can lead to the making of a nuclear bomb.
President Jacob Zuma is hosting his Indian counterpart Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is on a two-day state visit to the country. The two leaders also discussed expanding trade now standing at over 94 billion rand.
Trade is currently skewed in India's favour with South Africa exporting about 41 billion rand worth of goods while importing just over 53 billion rand worth of goods and services.
Modi lobbied Pretoria to support their bid to become a member of the Nuclear Supplies Group. Previous attempts by New Dehli to get into the 48 member Group have been rebuffed by mainly China because Dehli is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. South Africa also had reservations.
However during bilateral talks with President Zuma at the Union Buildings, Prime Minister Modi secured a major victory with Pretoria now backing their membership bid.
Prime Minister Modi says, "President Zuma and I agreed at the need to work closely on global challenges. I thank the President for South Africa support to India's membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. We know we can count on your active support of our friends like South Africa."
Modi is visiting four African countries to bolster economic trade with the continent. He backed South Africa's initiatives to diversify its exports to the Asian state.
The two countries have identified new areas for market access in Defence, Deep Mining,Renewable Energy and Health sectors. President Zuma has emphasised the need for greater cooperation between the two BRICS member countries to build financial institutions such as the BRICS Development Bank.
President Zuma says, "India, through its representative, Honourable K.V. Kamath is shaping the New Development Bank (BRICS BANK) to be a formidable player in financing much needed infrastructure in Africa and the rest of the developing world. As South Africa, we hope to open the first regional centre of the New Development Bank dedicated to infrastructure projects in Africa."
India and South Africa have also agreed to scale up cooperation in the defence and security sector. Prime Minister Modi says as regional powerhouses they need modern defence technologies to respond to global security challenges.
"In India this is one of the sectors witnessing a complete transformation. It offers opportunities in defence trade and also to respond to global and regional demands."
Meanwhile, Small Business Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu says there is a lot to learn from India's celebrated entrepreneurial spirit which is a cornerstone of that country's impressive economic growth.
Minister Zulu says, "The Prime Minister indicated that their economic development depends on small and medium enterprises. Financial support from banks which would work well with us because many of our small enterprises suffer access to finance."
Prime Minister Modi will conclude his state visit in Durban on Saturday where he will embark on a symbolic and historic tour - following in the footsteps of pre-eminent leader of the Indian Independence Movement in then British - ruled India Mahatma Gandhi. KwaZulu-Natal is home to the largest Indian diaspora in the world.
South Africa is exporting about R41 billion worth of goods and importing just over R53 billion worth of goods and services.
However, the trade balance is heavily skewed in India's favour. Addressing the media, President Zuma says South Africa and India will cooperate closely to build financial institutions such as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Development Bank.
“India, through its representative, Honourable K.V. Kamath, is shaping the New Development Bank (BRICS bank) to be a formidable player in financing much needed infrastructure in Africa and the rest of the developing world. As South Africa, we hope to open the first regional centre of the New Development Bank dedicated to infrastructure projects in Africa.”
Click on the video for a related story:
How do these two BRICS countries stack up against each other?
Data source: World Bank - data.worldbank.org - year 2015
Land Area (sq. Km)
2,500,0002,000,0001,500,0001,000,000500,0000South AfricaIndia
Population (total)
1,300,000,0001,200,000,0001,100,000,0001,000,000,000900,000,000800,000,000700,000,000600,000,000500,000,000400,000,000300,000,000200,000,000100,000,0000South AfricaIndia
India and South Africa are both members of the BRICS group of emerging markets which includes: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
India, in size, is larger than South Africa with a land mass of 2.9million square kilometers compared to South Africa's 1.2million square kilometers.
India's population dwarfs South Africa at more than 1.3 billion people squeezed into an area of land that's only more than twice our size. That means there are about 440 people per square kilometer in India which is ten times more than our 45 people per square kilometer.
312,797,576,594
South Africa's GDP in US$
2,073,542,978,209
India's GDP in US$
India's GDP (in 2015) was immensely larger than South Africa's at more than 2 trillion US dollars compared to ours which was just over 312 billion US dollars.
http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/7572d5...a-endorses-Indias-candidature-to-NSG-20160708
Politics / 08 Jul '16, 2:10pm
Shannon Ebrahim, Foreign Editor
Johannesburg - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took many by surprise when he thanked President Jacob Zuma for South Africa's support for India's bid for full membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group in his noon address to the media at the Union Buildings on Friday.
“I would like to thank President Zuma for South Africa’s support for India’s membership of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group. We know we can count on the active support of our friends like South Africa,” to which Zuma responded with a warm nod.
President of South Africa Jacob Zuma (L) shaking hands with Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi (R) during a welcoming ceremony at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. Narendra Modi is on a two-day official visit to South Africa, during which he will attend official talks with Jacob Zuma. EPA/GCIS/ELMOND JIYANE/HANDOUT. Credit: EPA
Modi a wizard of foreign policy
Even the Indian journalists who had traveled to South Africa to cover Modi's visit were caught off guard by the announcement, as South Africa had previously expressed its reservations about India's bid for full membership as it is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
India was recently unsuccessful in winning over unanimous support for its bid at the NSG meeting in Seoul. It was one of Modi's main priorities in his visit to South Africa to convince Zuma to back India's bid before the next NSG meeting in October.
Modi's plan was to use his one on one meeting with Zuma to secure South Africa's support. It seems Modi was successful with Zuma, as he has been in most of his lobbying efforts with foreign heads of state over the past six months as he has zigzagged the globe in a concerted effort to mobilize support for India's bid.
The reason why inclusion in the NSG is so important to India is that it makes access to nuclear technology and the purchase of nuclear material significantly easier and cheaper.
Pakistan has engaged in vociferous behind the scenes lobbying against India's bid, as this would create a double standard which seriously disadvantages other nuclear states. In order for India to succeed in achieving full membership in the 48 member group, all members will have to be unanimous in their decision to accept India.
It is highly unlikely that China will ever agree to India's admission given its steadfast opposition, which it says is based on a matter of principle.
An editorial in China's state-run Global Times said recently,”Since its foundation in 1975, all NSG members shall be NPT signatories. This has become the primary principle of the organisation. Now India wants to be the first exception to join the NSG without signing the NPT. It is morally legitimate for China and other members to upset India's proposal in defense of principles,” Referring to US backing for India's bid, the editorial stated, “U.S. backing adds the biggest impetus to India's ambition. By cozying up to India, Washington's India policy actually serves the purpose of containing China.”
http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/sa-backs-indias-bid-for-full-nsg-membership-2043398
South Africa endorses India's candidature to NSG
Friday 8 July 2016 15:28
Tshepo Ikaneng
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is engaging in bilateral talks with President Jacob Zuma at the Union Buildings.(SABC)
South Africa has endorsed India's candidature to become a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). The NSG seeks to prevent nuclear proliferation by keeping a check on the export of material, equipment and technology that can lead to the making of a nuclear bomb.
President Jacob Zuma is hosting his Indian counterpart Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is on a two-day state visit to the country. The two leaders also discussed expanding trade now standing at over 94 billion rand.
Trade is currently skewed in India's favour with South Africa exporting about 41 billion rand worth of goods while importing just over 53 billion rand worth of goods and services.
Modi lobbied Pretoria to support their bid to become a member of the Nuclear Supplies Group. Previous attempts by New Dehli to get into the 48 member Group have been rebuffed by mainly China because Dehli is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. South Africa also had reservations.
However during bilateral talks with President Zuma at the Union Buildings, Prime Minister Modi secured a major victory with Pretoria now backing their membership bid.
Prime Minister Modi says, "President Zuma and I agreed at the need to work closely on global challenges. I thank the President for South Africa support to India's membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. We know we can count on your active support of our friends like South Africa."
Modi is visiting four African countries to bolster economic trade with the continent. He backed South Africa's initiatives to diversify its exports to the Asian state.
The two countries have identified new areas for market access in Defence, Deep Mining,Renewable Energy and Health sectors. President Zuma has emphasised the need for greater cooperation between the two BRICS member countries to build financial institutions such as the BRICS Development Bank.
President Zuma says, "India, through its representative, Honourable K.V. Kamath is shaping the New Development Bank (BRICS BANK) to be a formidable player in financing much needed infrastructure in Africa and the rest of the developing world. As South Africa, we hope to open the first regional centre of the New Development Bank dedicated to infrastructure projects in Africa."
India and South Africa have also agreed to scale up cooperation in the defence and security sector. Prime Minister Modi says as regional powerhouses they need modern defence technologies to respond to global security challenges.
"In India this is one of the sectors witnessing a complete transformation. It offers opportunities in defence trade and also to respond to global and regional demands."
Meanwhile, Small Business Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu says there is a lot to learn from India's celebrated entrepreneurial spirit which is a cornerstone of that country's impressive economic growth.
Minister Zulu says, "The Prime Minister indicated that their economic development depends on small and medium enterprises. Financial support from banks which would work well with us because many of our small enterprises suffer access to finance."
Prime Minister Modi will conclude his state visit in Durban on Saturday where he will embark on a symbolic and historic tour - following in the footsteps of pre-eminent leader of the Indian Independence Movement in then British - ruled India Mahatma Gandhi. KwaZulu-Natal is home to the largest Indian diaspora in the world.
South Africa is exporting about R41 billion worth of goods and importing just over R53 billion worth of goods and services.
However, the trade balance is heavily skewed in India's favour. Addressing the media, President Zuma says South Africa and India will cooperate closely to build financial institutions such as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Development Bank.
“India, through its representative, Honourable K.V. Kamath, is shaping the New Development Bank (BRICS bank) to be a formidable player in financing much needed infrastructure in Africa and the rest of the developing world. As South Africa, we hope to open the first regional centre of the New Development Bank dedicated to infrastructure projects in Africa.”
Click on the video for a related story:
How do these two BRICS countries stack up against each other?
Data source: World Bank - data.worldbank.org - year 2015
Land Area (sq. Km)
2,500,0002,000,0001,500,0001,000,000500,0000South AfricaIndia
Population (total)
1,300,000,0001,200,000,0001,100,000,0001,000,000,000900,000,000800,000,000700,000,000600,000,000500,000,000400,000,000300,000,000200,000,000100,000,0000South AfricaIndia
India and South Africa are both members of the BRICS group of emerging markets which includes: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
India, in size, is larger than South Africa with a land mass of 2.9million square kilometers compared to South Africa's 1.2million square kilometers.
India's population dwarfs South Africa at more than 1.3 billion people squeezed into an area of land that's only more than twice our size. That means there are about 440 people per square kilometer in India which is ten times more than our 45 people per square kilometer.
312,797,576,594
South Africa's GDP in US$
2,073,542,978,209
India's GDP in US$
India's GDP (in 2015) was immensely larger than South Africa's at more than 2 trillion US dollars compared to ours which was just over 312 billion US dollars.
http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/7572d5...a-endorses-Indias-candidature-to-NSG-20160708
dadeechi
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After the NSG Debacle, Here Comes the Spin
By Satyabrata Pal on 04/07/2016 • 5 Comments
The claims made by apologists for the government about why India needs to rush its membership of the NSG simply don’t add up
See how I spin. Credit: Reuters
The Nuclear Suppliers Group plenary in Seoul was a debacle for India. Countries of our standing in the world rarely suffer such public humiliation, because they have skilled diplomatic services, as India does, which assess the importance of an international objective to national interests, gauge very carefully the likelihood of success, prepare the ground without fanfare, and commit national prestige to a public pursuit only when nothing has been left to chance. Exceptions are made only when what is at stake is of such supreme importance or urgency that a gamble is worth the risk. These precepts, which all mature nations follow in their foreign policy, were abandoned in the government’s strange and sudden infatuation with the NSG. We were, as Shakespeare said of lust, mad in pursuit; it ended, as he said it does, with the expense of spirit in a waste of shame.
This was a scandal, but though the prime minister gave his first television interview in office soon after to a programme that is usually the last refuge of scandals, he was not even asked the obvious and crucial questions. Why was membership of the NSG so important? If it was, why did we rush into it, expecting a decision to be taken within weeks of asking for it? What were we doing over the six years since the United States gave India its benison for the NSG, as well as the MTCR, the Australia Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement? And why, when China refused to budge, in the company of others, did we single it out for public criticism in official statements, not once but repeatedly, turning this now into a tussle between them and us, a win for one down the line an inevitable loss of face for the other. This is the nightmare scenario that diplomats try to avoid. The more powerful the country that loses, the more certain that it will exact a price, then or later. Does joining the NSG justify getting into a showdown with China over it?
Tall claims on ENR
In articles of absolutely mesmerising spin, apologists for the government now argue that the 2011 amendment to the NSG guidelines – which excluded countries outside the NPT from trade in enrichment and reprocessing (ENR), and therefore qualified what had been an unconditional waiver for India – was a “wake-up call”; unless India was in, other changes could be made to the waiver in the future which it could not block. Secondly, that membership became urgent because the principal suppliers wanted it, and it was essential to move forward on contracts after India committed, as part of its Intended Nationally Determined Commitments (INDC) in the context of the Paris summit on climate change in 2015, to generate 63 GWe from nuclear power by 2032.
On the first argument, the insinuation is that those on the watch in 2011 were sleeping on the job, and snored through the wake-up call, forcing their more alert successors into the unedifying running of the Brahma bull into the china shop that we have seen now. This would have been plausible if this government had not taken office in 2014: two years is a long time for wise virgins, not least because Obama the bridegroom twice tried to shake India out of its slumber. The joint statements issued in September 2014 and January 2015 reiterated his support for India’s “early application and eventual membership” in the NSG, as well as the other three groups. This was not enough to break our torpor. The “early application” came a year and a half later.
Secondly, the 2011 amendments to the NSG guidelines were sui generis. As was reported extensively when negotiations in the NSG on the waiver came down to the wire, a group of NPT purists – Austria, Ireland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland – held out for three conditions: there would be a periodic review of India’s compliance with its non-proliferation pledges, the waiver would not cover trade in enrichment and reprocessing, and it would lapse if India resumed nuclear tests. India accepted a review, since it had nothing to hide, the purists accepted our voluntary moratorium on testing, and were coerced into backing off on ENR, since we insisted that the waiver should be unconditional or “clean”.
ENR therefore was the only reservation these countries still harboured, and they took the first opportunity they had to amend the guidelines, so that what India got from the waiver was taken away by the revision. They could not have done this without the consent of all the others in the NSG, even those who later said that they would honour the original terms of the waiver, ignoring the change. That remains to be seen. We have incorporated the other changes made between 2011 and 2013 to the NSG guidelines in our own laws, so clearly we have no difficulties with them.
The crucial difference now is that over the last five years, we have signed agreements for the supply of fuel with Australia, Canada and Kazakhstan, three out of the ten largest producers in the world, and either have awarded contracts for reactors, or are negotiating them, with Russian, US and French companies. A minimum of five major members of the NSG now have enormous stakes in ensuring that the terms of the waiver are not changed in any way that could jeopardise their interests. A chance of any further revision that is India-specific is now remote, apart from the fact that there is no area of trade with India, other than ENR, on which any member of the NSG has reservations.
Equally, however, given the negotiating history, we would be unable to get a consensus in the group to turn the guidelines on ENR back to accommodate us. Membership, therefore, gives us nothing. It means that India would be the only member of the group not allowed to trade as of right with all others in all aspects of the nuclear cycle. That is a second-class membership.
Faulty maths on climate change
The second argument, that membership was essential because of India’s commitments in the Paris agreement on climate change, was first put out as a veiled threat in the official statement issued after the NSG plenary ended. It made the astonishing claim that India’s application for membership had “acquired an immediacy” after we set a target of “40% non-fossil power generation capacity by 2030” in our INDC, and an “early positive decision by the NSG would have allowed us to move forward on the Paris Agreement”. In other words, without being members of the NSG, we might have to renege on our commitments.
This petulance did not become a country like India. And the special pleading since then has been very frugal with the truth. The fact is that in our INDC, presented by this government, it had said that its plans for nuclear power would go forward “if supply of fuel is ensured.” That is not now a constraint. None of the major suppliers with which India now has agreements has made membership of the NSG a condition for continuing contracts. So supply of fuel is ensured, and that was the principal proviso the government placed on meeting the target it announced.
The other problem, stated elliptically elsewhere in the INDC, is of course finance, and that would be massive. Price negotiations for the six Westinghouse AP1000 reactors we have agreed to buy have not yet begun, but there were huge overruns on the two now being built in the US. They were contracted for in 2008 for $8 billion, rose to $14 billion, and current estimates are that they will end up costing $21 billion. Given escalation of costs by the time our contract is finalised, and the padding that will be inevitable to cater for the provisions of our Nuclear Liability Act, even in the most giddily optimistic scenario, the six reactors will cost India a minimum of $63 billion to produce 6000 MW. However, the US think-tank Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis did a study in March this year in which it estimated that the six units would cost India between $95 and $170 billion, the first unit would start to produce power by 2029 at the earliest, and the tariffs would be insupportable for the consumer.
If the government plans to contract with foreign suppliers for new reactors to generate 30 GWe, as its apologists claim, and the estimates of the think-tank are realistic, the outlay will be between $475 and $850 billion. Not more than one or two would be ready by the target date of 2032, and the financial burden, for the government and the consumer, would be back-breaking. These, therefore, are the real problems that the government must confront and place before the people: is nuclear power, generated on this scale from imported plants, fiscally responsible or even sustainable? Even if the government finds the money, the imposition in tariffs on the consumer would be huge and unfair. And since the target of 63 GWe cannot possibly be met by 2032, how does it plan to honour its INDC? None of these problems will be solved by membership of the NSG. It simply is not germane.
Satyabrata Pal is a former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan
http://thewire.in/48006/after-the-nsg-debacle-here-comes-the-spin/
Why this fuss about NSG membership?
TS Gopi Rethinaraj
Bright future: For India's nuclear programme
India needs technological help to build light water reactors, for which the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group is irrelevant
The decision of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) to deny India membership to its club is hardly surprising despite the government employing its diplomatic muscle in the run up to the group’s plenary meeting in Seoul this month.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal pleas to leaders of important countries, including China, certainly helped build broad support among NSG members for India. However, China’s resolute opposition (which is quite independent of Pakistan’s obstinacy) has ensured keeping India outside the NSG tent for now.
While the Prime Minister cannot be faulted for embarking on ambitious foreign policy goals, it is puzzling why he risked his personal reputation by hitching India’s diplomatic horse to a wrong cart. NSG membership, while desirable, is an issue of marginal importance to India’s nuclear energy development.
NSG’s exaggerated relevance
After the grand bargain following the nuclear détente with the US in 2005, India has gained substantially from the NSG waiver and partial safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2008 without having to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and compromise its nuclear weapons programme.
There is already enough leeway for India to deal with nuclear vendor countries bilaterally for importing uranium, reactors, and fuel cycle technologies. Hence seeking formal membership to NSG even before fully exploiting the benefits of the 2008 grand bargain appears to be an unnecessary distraction from pursuing more important strategic objectives.
The failed attempt in Seoul, however, presents India an opportunity for a hardnosed evaluation of priorities in the nuclear sector and to undertake steps to recover lost ground. In any case, a NSG membership is not going to make countries rush to India with nuclear reactor orders.
Only a few countries with deep pockets have sustained their interest in building nuclear power plants after the Fukushima disaster. The most popular choice for new builds is light water reactors (LWRs) for which India itself will have to depend on countries such as Russia, France, US and Japan.
The heavy water reactor (HWRs) technology that India could potentially export with or without NSG membership is fading into the sunset because of its declining share in the global reactor fleet.
HWRs may be of interest to countries that aspire to build nuclear weapons under a civilian cover, but it is unlikely that India will show any enthusiasm to export reactors to countries with dubious reputations. Obstacles for import of specific technologies could be overcome through strategic bilateral engagement with relevant nuclear vendor countries.
Hence India is better off limiting its civilian nuclear engagement with Russia, France, the US, and Japan while also preserving the indigenous expertise in HWRs and associated fuel cycle technologies. While the domestic nuclear programme is testimony to India’s sustained efforts to preserve its technological independence during the sanctions era, there is nothing sacrosanct about it.
Changing technological realities
Re-examination of nuclear technology options and policy correction in order to adjust to new realities is not a sign of weakness. India will have to use the present window of opportunity (for which NSG membership is immaterial) to obtain critical technology transfers from friendly countries to manage future uncertainties.
This is what the French and Japanese did earlier during 1960s and 1970s and what the Chinese seem to be doing skilfully now. Letting the bitterness of past experience come in the way of present choices and self-delusion about the capability of the indigenous nuclear programme to meet short and medium term energy demand will end up costing dearly in the long run.
Peter Senge in his classic Fifth Discipline argued that the hallmark of successful organisations is constant learning and willingness to change when faced with new realities and uncertainties. There is nothing wrong in re-examining the vision and roadmap that was laid out for India’s nuclear energy development during a bygone era.
If Homi Bhabha were alive today he would have had no hesitation in effecting a course correction if it served the interests of national energy security and India’s broader geopolitical goals.
This is not to suggest giving up on the hard-won indigenous nuclear capability. India is now a world leader in HWR development after the Canadians turned their back on the technology.
India is also one of the few countries that have acquired a formidable research and industrial experience in breeder reactor technology, even though its economic case has never been persuasive, especially when identified global uranium resources appear adequate for fuelling projected demand through the end of this century.
The reluctance of the nuclear bureaucracy to admit this reality and its continuing obfuscation about the economic benefits of certain aspects of the indigenous programme has made it an easy target for criticism.
The space research example
Denial of NSG membership amidst fresh opportunities provided by the grand bargain of 2008 should encourage India’s nuclear mandarins to take a fresh look at their development priorities.
With focused and sustained efforts it is within the realm of possibility that the NSG will find a way to accommodate India in a matter of time, provided India plays its cards well. In this context, the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) would do well to look at the recent successes of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and its enhanced global stature.
India’s space programme was also subject to sanctions like the nuclear programme, but ISRO’s focused and modular development strategy seemed to have paid off well. ISRO recently launched 20 satellites in one go including two student satellites from Indian universities and 17 of four foreign countries, and has become a world leader in a niche market.
Although the DAE is a technically superior and resourceful organisation compared to ISRO it seems to have muddled in the process of juggling with several reactor development fronts.
Perhaps, what is needed in the wake of denial of NSG membership is a hardnosed realism regarding priorities for nuclear energy development and a strategy to navigate the tangled thicket of international nuclear trade and commerce through bilateral engagements.
The writer is academic head at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru. The views are personal
(This article was published on July 8, 2016
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/why-this-fuss-about-nsg-membership/article8824716.ece
By Satyabrata Pal on 04/07/2016 • 5 Comments
The claims made by apologists for the government about why India needs to rush its membership of the NSG simply don’t add up
See how I spin. Credit: Reuters
The Nuclear Suppliers Group plenary in Seoul was a debacle for India. Countries of our standing in the world rarely suffer such public humiliation, because they have skilled diplomatic services, as India does, which assess the importance of an international objective to national interests, gauge very carefully the likelihood of success, prepare the ground without fanfare, and commit national prestige to a public pursuit only when nothing has been left to chance. Exceptions are made only when what is at stake is of such supreme importance or urgency that a gamble is worth the risk. These precepts, which all mature nations follow in their foreign policy, were abandoned in the government’s strange and sudden infatuation with the NSG. We were, as Shakespeare said of lust, mad in pursuit; it ended, as he said it does, with the expense of spirit in a waste of shame.
This was a scandal, but though the prime minister gave his first television interview in office soon after to a programme that is usually the last refuge of scandals, he was not even asked the obvious and crucial questions. Why was membership of the NSG so important? If it was, why did we rush into it, expecting a decision to be taken within weeks of asking for it? What were we doing over the six years since the United States gave India its benison for the NSG, as well as the MTCR, the Australia Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement? And why, when China refused to budge, in the company of others, did we single it out for public criticism in official statements, not once but repeatedly, turning this now into a tussle between them and us, a win for one down the line an inevitable loss of face for the other. This is the nightmare scenario that diplomats try to avoid. The more powerful the country that loses, the more certain that it will exact a price, then or later. Does joining the NSG justify getting into a showdown with China over it?
Tall claims on ENR
In articles of absolutely mesmerising spin, apologists for the government now argue that the 2011 amendment to the NSG guidelines – which excluded countries outside the NPT from trade in enrichment and reprocessing (ENR), and therefore qualified what had been an unconditional waiver for India – was a “wake-up call”; unless India was in, other changes could be made to the waiver in the future which it could not block. Secondly, that membership became urgent because the principal suppliers wanted it, and it was essential to move forward on contracts after India committed, as part of its Intended Nationally Determined Commitments (INDC) in the context of the Paris summit on climate change in 2015, to generate 63 GWe from nuclear power by 2032.
On the first argument, the insinuation is that those on the watch in 2011 were sleeping on the job, and snored through the wake-up call, forcing their more alert successors into the unedifying running of the Brahma bull into the china shop that we have seen now. This would have been plausible if this government had not taken office in 2014: two years is a long time for wise virgins, not least because Obama the bridegroom twice tried to shake India out of its slumber. The joint statements issued in September 2014 and January 2015 reiterated his support for India’s “early application and eventual membership” in the NSG, as well as the other three groups. This was not enough to break our torpor. The “early application” came a year and a half later.
Secondly, the 2011 amendments to the NSG guidelines were sui generis. As was reported extensively when negotiations in the NSG on the waiver came down to the wire, a group of NPT purists – Austria, Ireland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland – held out for three conditions: there would be a periodic review of India’s compliance with its non-proliferation pledges, the waiver would not cover trade in enrichment and reprocessing, and it would lapse if India resumed nuclear tests. India accepted a review, since it had nothing to hide, the purists accepted our voluntary moratorium on testing, and were coerced into backing off on ENR, since we insisted that the waiver should be unconditional or “clean”.
ENR therefore was the only reservation these countries still harboured, and they took the first opportunity they had to amend the guidelines, so that what India got from the waiver was taken away by the revision. They could not have done this without the consent of all the others in the NSG, even those who later said that they would honour the original terms of the waiver, ignoring the change. That remains to be seen. We have incorporated the other changes made between 2011 and 2013 to the NSG guidelines in our own laws, so clearly we have no difficulties with them.
The crucial difference now is that over the last five years, we have signed agreements for the supply of fuel with Australia, Canada and Kazakhstan, three out of the ten largest producers in the world, and either have awarded contracts for reactors, or are negotiating them, with Russian, US and French companies. A minimum of five major members of the NSG now have enormous stakes in ensuring that the terms of the waiver are not changed in any way that could jeopardise their interests. A chance of any further revision that is India-specific is now remote, apart from the fact that there is no area of trade with India, other than ENR, on which any member of the NSG has reservations.
Equally, however, given the negotiating history, we would be unable to get a consensus in the group to turn the guidelines on ENR back to accommodate us. Membership, therefore, gives us nothing. It means that India would be the only member of the group not allowed to trade as of right with all others in all aspects of the nuclear cycle. That is a second-class membership.
Faulty maths on climate change
The second argument, that membership was essential because of India’s commitments in the Paris agreement on climate change, was first put out as a veiled threat in the official statement issued after the NSG plenary ended. It made the astonishing claim that India’s application for membership had “acquired an immediacy” after we set a target of “40% non-fossil power generation capacity by 2030” in our INDC, and an “early positive decision by the NSG would have allowed us to move forward on the Paris Agreement”. In other words, without being members of the NSG, we might have to renege on our commitments.
This petulance did not become a country like India. And the special pleading since then has been very frugal with the truth. The fact is that in our INDC, presented by this government, it had said that its plans for nuclear power would go forward “if supply of fuel is ensured.” That is not now a constraint. None of the major suppliers with which India now has agreements has made membership of the NSG a condition for continuing contracts. So supply of fuel is ensured, and that was the principal proviso the government placed on meeting the target it announced.
The other problem, stated elliptically elsewhere in the INDC, is of course finance, and that would be massive. Price negotiations for the six Westinghouse AP1000 reactors we have agreed to buy have not yet begun, but there were huge overruns on the two now being built in the US. They were contracted for in 2008 for $8 billion, rose to $14 billion, and current estimates are that they will end up costing $21 billion. Given escalation of costs by the time our contract is finalised, and the padding that will be inevitable to cater for the provisions of our Nuclear Liability Act, even in the most giddily optimistic scenario, the six reactors will cost India a minimum of $63 billion to produce 6000 MW. However, the US think-tank Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis did a study in March this year in which it estimated that the six units would cost India between $95 and $170 billion, the first unit would start to produce power by 2029 at the earliest, and the tariffs would be insupportable for the consumer.
If the government plans to contract with foreign suppliers for new reactors to generate 30 GWe, as its apologists claim, and the estimates of the think-tank are realistic, the outlay will be between $475 and $850 billion. Not more than one or two would be ready by the target date of 2032, and the financial burden, for the government and the consumer, would be back-breaking. These, therefore, are the real problems that the government must confront and place before the people: is nuclear power, generated on this scale from imported plants, fiscally responsible or even sustainable? Even if the government finds the money, the imposition in tariffs on the consumer would be huge and unfair. And since the target of 63 GWe cannot possibly be met by 2032, how does it plan to honour its INDC? None of these problems will be solved by membership of the NSG. It simply is not germane.
Satyabrata Pal is a former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan
http://thewire.in/48006/after-the-nsg-debacle-here-comes-the-spin/
Why this fuss about NSG membership?
TS Gopi Rethinaraj
Bright future: For India's nuclear programme
India needs technological help to build light water reactors, for which the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group is irrelevant
The decision of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) to deny India membership to its club is hardly surprising despite the government employing its diplomatic muscle in the run up to the group’s plenary meeting in Seoul this month.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal pleas to leaders of important countries, including China, certainly helped build broad support among NSG members for India. However, China’s resolute opposition (which is quite independent of Pakistan’s obstinacy) has ensured keeping India outside the NSG tent for now.
While the Prime Minister cannot be faulted for embarking on ambitious foreign policy goals, it is puzzling why he risked his personal reputation by hitching India’s diplomatic horse to a wrong cart. NSG membership, while desirable, is an issue of marginal importance to India’s nuclear energy development.
NSG’s exaggerated relevance
After the grand bargain following the nuclear détente with the US in 2005, India has gained substantially from the NSG waiver and partial safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2008 without having to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and compromise its nuclear weapons programme.
There is already enough leeway for India to deal with nuclear vendor countries bilaterally for importing uranium, reactors, and fuel cycle technologies. Hence seeking formal membership to NSG even before fully exploiting the benefits of the 2008 grand bargain appears to be an unnecessary distraction from pursuing more important strategic objectives.
The failed attempt in Seoul, however, presents India an opportunity for a hardnosed evaluation of priorities in the nuclear sector and to undertake steps to recover lost ground. In any case, a NSG membership is not going to make countries rush to India with nuclear reactor orders.
Only a few countries with deep pockets have sustained their interest in building nuclear power plants after the Fukushima disaster. The most popular choice for new builds is light water reactors (LWRs) for which India itself will have to depend on countries such as Russia, France, US and Japan.
The heavy water reactor (HWRs) technology that India could potentially export with or without NSG membership is fading into the sunset because of its declining share in the global reactor fleet.
HWRs may be of interest to countries that aspire to build nuclear weapons under a civilian cover, but it is unlikely that India will show any enthusiasm to export reactors to countries with dubious reputations. Obstacles for import of specific technologies could be overcome through strategic bilateral engagement with relevant nuclear vendor countries.
Hence India is better off limiting its civilian nuclear engagement with Russia, France, the US, and Japan while also preserving the indigenous expertise in HWRs and associated fuel cycle technologies. While the domestic nuclear programme is testimony to India’s sustained efforts to preserve its technological independence during the sanctions era, there is nothing sacrosanct about it.
Changing technological realities
Re-examination of nuclear technology options and policy correction in order to adjust to new realities is not a sign of weakness. India will have to use the present window of opportunity (for which NSG membership is immaterial) to obtain critical technology transfers from friendly countries to manage future uncertainties.
This is what the French and Japanese did earlier during 1960s and 1970s and what the Chinese seem to be doing skilfully now. Letting the bitterness of past experience come in the way of present choices and self-delusion about the capability of the indigenous nuclear programme to meet short and medium term energy demand will end up costing dearly in the long run.
Peter Senge in his classic Fifth Discipline argued that the hallmark of successful organisations is constant learning and willingness to change when faced with new realities and uncertainties. There is nothing wrong in re-examining the vision and roadmap that was laid out for India’s nuclear energy development during a bygone era.
If Homi Bhabha were alive today he would have had no hesitation in effecting a course correction if it served the interests of national energy security and India’s broader geopolitical goals.
This is not to suggest giving up on the hard-won indigenous nuclear capability. India is now a world leader in HWR development after the Canadians turned their back on the technology.
India is also one of the few countries that have acquired a formidable research and industrial experience in breeder reactor technology, even though its economic case has never been persuasive, especially when identified global uranium resources appear adequate for fuelling projected demand through the end of this century.
The reluctance of the nuclear bureaucracy to admit this reality and its continuing obfuscation about the economic benefits of certain aspects of the indigenous programme has made it an easy target for criticism.
The space research example
Denial of NSG membership amidst fresh opportunities provided by the grand bargain of 2008 should encourage India’s nuclear mandarins to take a fresh look at their development priorities.
With focused and sustained efforts it is within the realm of possibility that the NSG will find a way to accommodate India in a matter of time, provided India plays its cards well. In this context, the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) would do well to look at the recent successes of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and its enhanced global stature.
India’s space programme was also subject to sanctions like the nuclear programme, but ISRO’s focused and modular development strategy seemed to have paid off well. ISRO recently launched 20 satellites in one go including two student satellites from Indian universities and 17 of four foreign countries, and has become a world leader in a niche market.
Although the DAE is a technically superior and resourceful organisation compared to ISRO it seems to have muddled in the process of juggling with several reactor development fronts.
Perhaps, what is needed in the wake of denial of NSG membership is a hardnosed realism regarding priorities for nuclear energy development and a strategy to navigate the tangled thicket of international nuclear trade and commerce through bilateral engagements.
The writer is academic head at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru. The views are personal
(This article was published on July 8, 2016
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/why-this-fuss-about-nsg-membership/article8824716.ece
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India’s Quest for NSG Membership
Source: Getty
Mark Hibbs
http://carnegieendowment.org/email/DC_Comms/media/hibbs.pdf
Source: Getty
Mark Hibbs
- Op-Ed
- July 08, 2016
- Nuclear Intelligence Weekly
- A road map for admitting India into the NSG began to emerge six years ago. The United States announced it wanted India in, and thereafter led the way in setting up an internal “structured dialogue” toward that end. Washington anticipated that within a few years the matter would be agreed to by consensus—as had been India’s “singular exception” to the NSG guidelines in 2008.
Mark Hibbs
Senior Associate
Nuclear Policy Program
More from this author...- Vigorous Verification in Iran
- The Nuclear Suppliers Group’s Critical India Decision
- Admitting Non-NPT Members: Questions for the NSG
The US, close allies, and India collaborated toward the goal of admitting India into several multilateral export control regimes, an important objective for India after years frozen out of international nuclear trade. The plan called for India first to join the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), then the NSG, and finally the control arrangements for conventional and chemical weapons. India and its advocates hoped that a positive NSG
decision would be made before the end of an annual group meeting held late last month in Seoul.
It didn’t work out as planned. After five years, the NSG “structured dialogue” hadn’t reached consensus conclusions because giving India full membership was trickier than carving out for India an exception to the NSG’s trade rules. Especially because the NSG right from its inception aimed to inhibit its members from assisting India in making nuclear weapons, the NSG’s members had to more deeply consider what Indian membership implied for the group’s rules and procedures, as well as for its identity.
NSG participants’ decisions over four decades to expand participation from seven to 48 states reflected in all cases two important aspirations that followed from the group’s export control and nonproliferation missions. The first is the goal to get all supplier states to adhere to the guidelines. The second is to reinforce good nonproliferation behavior, including in new participants. These rationales are consistent with five “factors” for membership that are listed in INFCIRC/539, an NSG document that explains how the group works. They are also consistent with the statement in INFCIRC/539 that “the NSG remains open to admitting further supplier countries in order to strengthen international nonproliferation efforts.”
In the case of India, the first of the two above-mentioned rationales powerfully applies. India is a state with nuclear arms and an important, ambitious, and indigenous civilian nuclear energy program. India produces and processes nuclear materials, it makes virtually every listed item needed for equipping nuclear reactors, and it is beginning to enter the global market as a supplier of these goods. Nearly all NSG members clearly see the value of including India in the group in light of these facts.
The second rationale—encouraging and reinforcing good nonproliferation behavior—is more problematic. Participants have questioned whether India is “like-minded” concerning the NSG’s mission to apply nuclear export controls in the interest of non-proliferation. There has been no snap answer, in part because for decades India viewed multilateral nuclear export controls as a neo-colonialist stick to beat developing countries with.
Part of the problem is that unlike all current NSG members, India is not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and it has not subjected its nuclear activities to any multilateral restraints. One way out of this dilemma would be for India to meet specific criteria or approach certain benchmarks as a condition for membership. NPT membership is not a requirement for membership in the NSG, but “adherence” is a “factor” in INFCIRC/539, and many participants would favor India making binding legal commitments—including to NPT Articles I and VI and to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty—that would bring India closer to
the global nonproliferation mainstream.
The NSG also needs to consider what admitting India would mean for the NSG’s own guidelines and procedures. Working-level participants warn that so far questions related to India’s possession of nuclear arms have not been answered. These include whether India would continue to be barred from access to enrichment and reprocessing technology because it is not an NPT party.
Notwithstanding these issues, India this spring began pressing the NSG’s members to quickly decide in its favor, especially as time began running out on the Seoul meeting deadline. That approach may have been counterproductive for India. Officials from China, which had urged that a decision about India take the NPT into account, suggested that China’s position last month hardened, providing other NSG members more space to raise their working-level concerns.
After Seoul, Indian officials singled out Beijing for blocking India’s NSG membership, raising the prospect that geopolitics will for the first time significantly factor in an NSG membership decision. High politics are not mentioned in INFCIRC/539 and many participants believe they should be peripheral. Likewise, Indian claims that without NSG membership India faces supply-chain interruptions for nuclear projects, and cannot meet climate change commitments (irrespective of whether these claims are true) are extraneous to the NSG’s export control and nonproliferation missions.
How the NSG handles Indian membership now is up to South Korea, which has inherited the rotating chairmanship until mid-2017, and the NSG’s previous chairman, from Argentina. They will continue discussion, including over possible criteria for membership and NSG procedures. If enough progress is made, the chairman will call an extraordinary plenary meeting to again consider India’s application. Getting answers to the process questions is important because members need to know how the group will function with India sitting at the table.
Two weeks ago UK voters, after a lengthy debate over the risks and benefits, elected to leave the European Union. They were swayed by politicians who expressed strong opinions and who brushed off the challenges Britain would face to make Brexit happen. In the aftermath, the UK appears directionless and paralyzed about how to go forward. Reflecting on this, NSG participants should instead be well-prepared for what happens should India join their ranks.
This piece originally appeared in Nuclear Intelligence Weekly.
http://carnegieendowment.org/email/DC_Comms/media/hibbs.pdf
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Chinese Ambassador signals room for talks on India in NSG
Refusing to “heat up” the issue again, Liu Jinsong, Beijing’s envoy to New Delhi, said since India has not named China, why should it “rush to pick up the hat”.
Written by Shubhajit Roy
New Delhi Updated: Jul 15, 2016, 10:10
Written by Shubhajit Roy | New Delhi | Updated: July 15, 2016 10:10 am
On Masood Azhar, Liu says India must consult Pak.
For the first time after India pointed at China — without naming it — for blocking its entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), China indicated that there is room for negotiations and a solution can be found.
Refusing to “heat up” the issue again, Liu Jinsong, Beijing’s envoy to New Delhi, said since India has not named China, why should it “rush to pick up the hat”.
In an interview to The Indian Express at his residence on Thursday, Liu, who is the Acting Ambassador, also allayed concerns of impeding trade routes in the South China Sea and said China, like India, is a “peace-loving country” and Delhi has no reason to worry about its capacity-building in national defence.
Defending China’s infrastructure-building in islands of the South China Sea, he claimed they were for providing public services, like weather forecasting, rescue and medical assistance services, to the international community.
On the Chinese putting on technical hold the UN designation of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar as a terrorist, Liu said it is “not a political hold” and is not being blocked. He also counselled India to indulge in “friendly consultations” with Pakistan – without naming it – and come to a mutually acceptable outcome.
Responding to a question on China blocking India’s membership in NSG at Seoul last month, Liu said, “This topic has been very hot last month, now it has cooled down a little bit. I don’t want to talk too much about it and heat it up again. I want to leave time and room for the diplomats to work out a solution.”
“The Indian statement”, he said, does not name China. “How do you decide that this country is China?”
Told that it had been widely reported, he said, “When India has not specifically mentioned China, why should China rush to pick up the hat?”
He said the Chinese approach on the NSG question is three-fold: “Abiding by the rules, leaving the room and space (for negotiations) and finding the route (solution).”
Asked if that can happen later this year, he said that he would not spell out a timetable. On the question of a possible quid pro quo between Chinese membership of the MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime) and India’s entry into NSG, he said that there is “no linkage” between the two. On India’s entry into MTCR, he said, “It is good that India is now a member of MTCR.”
On the question of Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea leading to a possible blockade of trade routes, he said, “India has expressed this concern (on Tuesday). China shares the concern. China is committed to safeguarding freedom of navigation in South China Sea… and actually, the purpose of building some facilities in some islands in SCS is to provide public good for the international community, like lighthouses, weather stations and other kinds of civilian facilities.”
“China, like India is also a peace-loving country which sticks to international law and order and good neighbourliness,” he said, and “India has no reason to worry about its capacity-building in its national defence.”
On the holding of Malabar exercises, he said it is part of India’s military cooperation with others. “If it is not targeted at China, we won’t have any problems with that. However, if any party or parties participating in the exercise want to deliberately bring the exercise to the disputed waters of South China Sea, then we will be concerned. (But) Indian side has been very cautious and has been sticking to principles, and has decided to not participate in joint patrols in the South China Sea.”
On Masood Azhar’s designation as a terrorist being blocked at the UN, the Chinese envoy said, “China, India, Pakistan are all victims of terrorist activities… there is no such thing as China blocking. (In this case) third party needs to be consulted. It is not a political hold, but a technical hold. Only a hold, not blocking.”
“I don’t know much about this person Masood… but as per rules of 1267 committee, another country, the country of origin of Masood, needs to be consulted. If you and that country can have friendly consultations and reach a mutually acceptable result, then China will be glad to go along with results.”
Diplomacy, he said, is all about “negotiating and making compromises”. “No country can have it all. You have to compromise somewhere… you need patience and need to abide by the rules,” he said
http://indianexpress.com/article/in...sood-azhar-terrorism-south-china-sea-2914833/
Refusing to “heat up” the issue again, Liu Jinsong, Beijing’s envoy to New Delhi, said since India has not named China, why should it “rush to pick up the hat”.
Written by Shubhajit Roy
New Delhi Updated: Jul 15, 2016, 10:10
Written by Shubhajit Roy | New Delhi | Updated: July 15, 2016 10:10 am
On Masood Azhar, Liu says India must consult Pak.
For the first time after India pointed at China — without naming it — for blocking its entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), China indicated that there is room for negotiations and a solution can be found.
Refusing to “heat up” the issue again, Liu Jinsong, Beijing’s envoy to New Delhi, said since India has not named China, why should it “rush to pick up the hat”.
In an interview to The Indian Express at his residence on Thursday, Liu, who is the Acting Ambassador, also allayed concerns of impeding trade routes in the South China Sea and said China, like India, is a “peace-loving country” and Delhi has no reason to worry about its capacity-building in national defence.
Defending China’s infrastructure-building in islands of the South China Sea, he claimed they were for providing public services, like weather forecasting, rescue and medical assistance services, to the international community.
On the Chinese putting on technical hold the UN designation of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar as a terrorist, Liu said it is “not a political hold” and is not being blocked. He also counselled India to indulge in “friendly consultations” with Pakistan – without naming it – and come to a mutually acceptable outcome.
Responding to a question on China blocking India’s membership in NSG at Seoul last month, Liu said, “This topic has been very hot last month, now it has cooled down a little bit. I don’t want to talk too much about it and heat it up again. I want to leave time and room for the diplomats to work out a solution.”
“The Indian statement”, he said, does not name China. “How do you decide that this country is China?”
Told that it had been widely reported, he said, “When India has not specifically mentioned China, why should China rush to pick up the hat?”
He said the Chinese approach on the NSG question is three-fold: “Abiding by the rules, leaving the room and space (for negotiations) and finding the route (solution).”
Asked if that can happen later this year, he said that he would not spell out a timetable. On the question of a possible quid pro quo between Chinese membership of the MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime) and India’s entry into NSG, he said that there is “no linkage” between the two. On India’s entry into MTCR, he said, “It is good that India is now a member of MTCR.”
On the question of Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea leading to a possible blockade of trade routes, he said, “India has expressed this concern (on Tuesday). China shares the concern. China is committed to safeguarding freedom of navigation in South China Sea… and actually, the purpose of building some facilities in some islands in SCS is to provide public good for the international community, like lighthouses, weather stations and other kinds of civilian facilities.”
“China, like India is also a peace-loving country which sticks to international law and order and good neighbourliness,” he said, and “India has no reason to worry about its capacity-building in its national defence.”
On the holding of Malabar exercises, he said it is part of India’s military cooperation with others. “If it is not targeted at China, we won’t have any problems with that. However, if any party or parties participating in the exercise want to deliberately bring the exercise to the disputed waters of South China Sea, then we will be concerned. (But) Indian side has been very cautious and has been sticking to principles, and has decided to not participate in joint patrols in the South China Sea.”
On Masood Azhar’s designation as a terrorist being blocked at the UN, the Chinese envoy said, “China, India, Pakistan are all victims of terrorist activities… there is no such thing as China blocking. (In this case) third party needs to be consulted. It is not a political hold, but a technical hold. Only a hold, not blocking.”
“I don’t know much about this person Masood… but as per rules of 1267 committee, another country, the country of origin of Masood, needs to be consulted. If you and that country can have friendly consultations and reach a mutually acceptable result, then China will be glad to go along with results.”
Diplomacy, he said, is all about “negotiating and making compromises”. “No country can have it all. You have to compromise somewhere… you need patience and need to abide by the rules,” he said
http://indianexpress.com/article/in...sood-azhar-terrorism-south-china-sea-2914833/
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India's NSG bid: China says 'no country can put itself opposite NPT'
Amid India's assertion that it will not sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to gain entry into NSG, an adamant China on Thursday said "no country should or can put itself opposite the NPT".
PTI | Jul 21, 2016, 11.17 PM IST
Highlights
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang. (AFP photo)
BEIJING: Amid India's assertion that it will not sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to gain entry into NSG, an adamant China on Thursday said "no country should or can put itself opposite the NPT".
"We have repeatedly stated our position on the accession of non-NPT countries into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said here, reacting to External Affairs Minister
BACKGROUND
India’s NSG bid: Engagement with China continues, Sushma Swaraj tells Parliament
Highlights
China
over its opposition to India's entry to the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
"If someone does not agree to something once, it doesn't mean that they will never agree to it. We are continuing our efforts in engaging with China on this issue," said Swaraj on India's bid to
gain entry to the NSG
, the global civil nuclear trading group.
Swaraj's statements on the NSG issue came in response to queries from Opposition members on the status of India's bid for entry into the elite nuclear trading group.
Swaraj likened her government's continuing efforts in this regard to its efforts to get the
GST Bill
passed in Parliament, saying it has endeavoured for consensus on the key tax reform.
She also reiterated India's aversion to signing the NPT, which New Delhi has continued to oppose on the grounds of being inherently unfair in excluding a vast majority of nations from an elite nuclear club.
Swaraj rejected suggestions that India had created a lot of "hype" ahead of the NSG meet in Seoul. "We have been taught to make serious efforts to achieve things...no hype was created when we submitted our application for the membership of NSG on May 12. We did it with low fanfare," she said.
Beijing had raised the fact that India is not a signatory to the NPT as central to its opposition to granting New Delhi a membership to the NSG. It had argued against any concessions to India on this front, even as it acknowledged India's impeccable non-proliferation record.
China had bunched India with Pakistan, an acknowledged proliferator of nuclear technology, saying allowing the entry of one non-NPT nation into the NSG would raise questions over legitimate nuclear powers.
Sushma Swaraj's statement in the Lok Sabha+ on Wednesday that India will not sign the NPT.
"It is worth mentioning that China does not make the rules for how to become new members of the group. The international community has forged a consensus long ago that the NPT is the cornerstone of the international non-proliferation regime. No country should or can put itself opposite to the NPT," Lu said.
Swaraj had said India is engaging with China to iron out differences after Beijing created "procedural hurdles" for its entry into the 48-member NSG but made it clear that government will never ink NPT, which only recognises five countries — the US, Russia, the UK, France and China — as nuclear weapon states.
Swaraj said
BACKGROUND
China created hurdles for NSG entry: Sushma Swaraj
Foreign minister Sushma Swaraj.
New Delhi: The government on Wednesday again blamed China for creating what it described as a procedural hurdle in India's NSG membership bid, even as it said it continued to engage Beijing on the issue.
Speaking in Lok Sabha, foreign minister Sushma Swaraj also declared that India was not going to sign the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) to attain membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
Swaraj said China had raised questions over how a non-NPT signatory could become a member of the NSG. The minister also asserted that membership of NSG, which has already allowed India to participate in nuclear commerce, was significant for India as it did not want to remain on the "verandah" but in the room where decisions were being made.
"We are still engaging with China. We have not stopped efforts. If someone says no once, it doesn't mean he will say no forever," Swaraj said during the question hour.
She went on to draw a parallel with Congress's resistance to the GST bill. "Congress friends are not allowing the GST bill to be passed. Four sessions have passed, all parties have agreed to it, it is being held up due to them (Congress). That does not mean it will never agree (to the GST bill). It is possible that the bill will be passed in this session," she said.
Swaraj said India had a "clear-cut" policy on NPT and while it would continue to abide by the commitments it made in 2008 when it acquired a waiver from NSG to carry out nuclear commerce, it was not going to sign the NPT.
Swaraj also brushed aside suggestions that India had created unnecessary hype ahead of the NSG plenary in Seoul and that the failure to become a member was a diplomatic snub as it came just after PM Modi's visit to Mexico and Switzerland.
"But we are engaging with it. We have not stopped efforts. If someone says 'no' for once, it does not mean he won't agree at all," she said.
Lu's comments on Wednesday stated that there is no change in China's stand on the NPT and that the new members wanting to join the NSG should sign it.
Beijing in the past has insisted on consensus over the entry of new members into grouping after majority of the nuclear trading club backed India's case.
In a setback to India's efforts to join the grouping, the NSG plenary held in South Korea last month decided against accepting the country's membership application after China and some other nations opposed entry of a non-NPT signatory.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...-itself-opposite-NPT/articleshow/53326798.cms
For India's Bid For Nuclear Group NSG, Germany Had Suggested a Plan B
All India | Written by Maya Mirchandani (with inputs from Reuters) | Updated: July 22, 2016 17:54 IST
Germany, which supported India nuke club NSG bid, suggested an alternative route into the bloc
New Delhi:
Highlights
When India was snubbed by the Nuclear Suppliers Group or NSG, which refused in entry last month, Germany, which supported the application, tried to give India an alternative route into the 48-country bloc that controls sensitive nuclear technology.
China used what India has described as a "procedural hurdle" to keep India out, stating that the NSG cannot admit a country that has not signed the main global arms control pact or the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
That was in Seoul. Just days before that, as the NSG held a key session in Vienna, Germany wrote to Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, suggesting that if India prefers, it could instead sign the CTBT -the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which commits nations against nuclear testing. More than 160 countries have ratified the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). But since 1996, India is among the countries that have conducted nuclear tests. Eight countries including the US and India have blocked the pact from taking effect.
The letter to Ms Swaraj from German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier commends India's voluntary moratorium on nuclear weapons testing and says India's entry into the CTBT would be a "significant step towards the danger emanating from nuclear weapons".
Senior government sources told NDTV that Ms Swaraj responded to the letter nearly three weeks later, after India was turned away from the NSG, which, however, has suggested the application may be reviewed again later this year.
In her reply, Ms Swaraj reiterated that India continues remains committed to a "global, verifiable and non-discriminatory nuclear disarmament".
China was the ringleader of a group of countries that included Switzerland who fought the push by the United States to bring India into the NSG. The United States, which has a nuclear cooperation deal with Delhi, says India must be recognised as a nuclear power that plays by the rules and is not a proliferator.
India already enjoys most of the benefits of membership under a 2008 exemption to NSG rules granted to support its nuclear cooperation deal with Washington.
Germany has not opposed India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers group, and in fact is believed to have lobbied with Switzerland to drop its opposition.
Sources say Ms Swaraj also received a note from the Netherlands which repeated Germany's suggestion.
Ms Swaraj told parliament this week India continue to "engage with China" with the aim of winning Beijing's support and that India remains firm on not signing the NPT. The letters from Germany and the Netherlands indicate, however, that India will be pressured to enter other non-proliferation regimes if it wants to collect support for its application to the elite NSG.
http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/for-...up-nsg-germany-had-suggested-a-plan-b-1434817
Amid India's assertion that it will not sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to gain entry into NSG, an adamant China on Thursday said "no country should or can put itself opposite the NPT".
PTI | Jul 21, 2016, 11.17 PM IST
Highlights
- No country should or can put itself opposite the NPT, China said
- It clarified that China does not make the rules for how to become new members of the group
- The response comes after Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday said India will never sign NPT
BEIJING: Amid India's assertion that it will not sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to gain entry into NSG, an adamant China on Thursday said "no country should or can put itself opposite the NPT".
"We have repeatedly stated our position on the accession of non-NPT countries into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said here, reacting to External Affairs Minister
BACKGROUND
India’s NSG bid: Engagement with China continues, Sushma Swaraj tells Parliament
Highlights
- India will not sign NPT for NSG membership, Sushma Swaraj said.
- She rejected the charge that the government created a 'hype' over India's NSG bid.
- India will continue to engage China for its NSG membership.
China
over its opposition to India's entry to the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
"If someone does not agree to something once, it doesn't mean that they will never agree to it. We are continuing our efforts in engaging with China on this issue," said Swaraj on India's bid to
gain entry to the NSG
, the global civil nuclear trading group.
Swaraj's statements on the NSG issue came in response to queries from Opposition members on the status of India's bid for entry into the elite nuclear trading group.
Swaraj likened her government's continuing efforts in this regard to its efforts to get the
GST Bill
passed in Parliament, saying it has endeavoured for consensus on the key tax reform.
She also reiterated India's aversion to signing the NPT, which New Delhi has continued to oppose on the grounds of being inherently unfair in excluding a vast majority of nations from an elite nuclear club.
Swaraj rejected suggestions that India had created a lot of "hype" ahead of the NSG meet in Seoul. "We have been taught to make serious efforts to achieve things...no hype was created when we submitted our application for the membership of NSG on May 12. We did it with low fanfare," she said.
Beijing had raised the fact that India is not a signatory to the NPT as central to its opposition to granting New Delhi a membership to the NSG. It had argued against any concessions to India on this front, even as it acknowledged India's impeccable non-proliferation record.
China had bunched India with Pakistan, an acknowledged proliferator of nuclear technology, saying allowing the entry of one non-NPT nation into the NSG would raise questions over legitimate nuclear powers.
Sushma Swaraj's statement in the Lok Sabha+ on Wednesday that India will not sign the NPT.
"It is worth mentioning that China does not make the rules for how to become new members of the group. The international community has forged a consensus long ago that the NPT is the cornerstone of the international non-proliferation regime. No country should or can put itself opposite to the NPT," Lu said.
Swaraj had said India is engaging with China to iron out differences after Beijing created "procedural hurdles" for its entry into the 48-member NSG but made it clear that government will never ink NPT, which only recognises five countries — the US, Russia, the UK, France and China — as nuclear weapon states.
Swaraj said
BACKGROUND
China created hurdles for NSG entry: Sushma Swaraj
New Delhi: The government on Wednesday again blamed China for creating what it described as a procedural hurdle in India's NSG membership bid, even as it said it continued to engage Beijing on the issue.
Speaking in Lok Sabha, foreign minister Sushma Swaraj also declared that India was not going to sign the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) to attain membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
Swaraj said China had raised questions over how a non-NPT signatory could become a member of the NSG. The minister also asserted that membership of NSG, which has already allowed India to participate in nuclear commerce, was significant for India as it did not want to remain on the "verandah" but in the room where decisions were being made.
"We are still engaging with China. We have not stopped efforts. If someone says no once, it doesn't mean he will say no forever," Swaraj said during the question hour.
She went on to draw a parallel with Congress's resistance to the GST bill. "Congress friends are not allowing the GST bill to be passed. Four sessions have passed, all parties have agreed to it, it is being held up due to them (Congress). That does not mean it will never agree (to the GST bill). It is possible that the bill will be passed in this session," she said.
Swaraj said India had a "clear-cut" policy on NPT and while it would continue to abide by the commitments it made in 2008 when it acquired a waiver from NSG to carry out nuclear commerce, it was not going to sign the NPT.
Swaraj also brushed aside suggestions that India had created unnecessary hype ahead of the NSG plenary in Seoul and that the failure to become a member was a diplomatic snub as it came just after PM Modi's visit to Mexico and Switzerland.
"But we are engaging with it. We have not stopped efforts. If someone says 'no' for once, it does not mean he won't agree at all," she said.
Lu's comments on Wednesday stated that there is no change in China's stand on the NPT and that the new members wanting to join the NSG should sign it.
Beijing in the past has insisted on consensus over the entry of new members into grouping after majority of the nuclear trading club backed India's case.
In a setback to India's efforts to join the grouping, the NSG plenary held in South Korea last month decided against accepting the country's membership application after China and some other nations opposed entry of a non-NPT signatory.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...-itself-opposite-NPT/articleshow/53326798.cms
For India's Bid For Nuclear Group NSG, Germany Had Suggested a Plan B
All India | Written by Maya Mirchandani (with inputs from Reuters) | Updated: July 22, 2016 17:54 IST
Germany, which supported India nuke club NSG bid, suggested an alternative route into the bloc
New Delhi:
Highlights
- India refused entry to nuclear trading group NSG last month
- India must sign NPT (non proliferation treaty) first, said China
- Not ok, says India. Germany suggested another non-proliferation pact
When India was snubbed by the Nuclear Suppliers Group or NSG, which refused in entry last month, Germany, which supported the application, tried to give India an alternative route into the 48-country bloc that controls sensitive nuclear technology.
China used what India has described as a "procedural hurdle" to keep India out, stating that the NSG cannot admit a country that has not signed the main global arms control pact or the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
That was in Seoul. Just days before that, as the NSG held a key session in Vienna, Germany wrote to Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, suggesting that if India prefers, it could instead sign the CTBT -the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which commits nations against nuclear testing. More than 160 countries have ratified the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). But since 1996, India is among the countries that have conducted nuclear tests. Eight countries including the US and India have blocked the pact from taking effect.
The letter to Ms Swaraj from German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier commends India's voluntary moratorium on nuclear weapons testing and says India's entry into the CTBT would be a "significant step towards the danger emanating from nuclear weapons".
Senior government sources told NDTV that Ms Swaraj responded to the letter nearly three weeks later, after India was turned away from the NSG, which, however, has suggested the application may be reviewed again later this year.
In her reply, Ms Swaraj reiterated that India continues remains committed to a "global, verifiable and non-discriminatory nuclear disarmament".
China was the ringleader of a group of countries that included Switzerland who fought the push by the United States to bring India into the NSG. The United States, which has a nuclear cooperation deal with Delhi, says India must be recognised as a nuclear power that plays by the rules and is not a proliferator.
India already enjoys most of the benefits of membership under a 2008 exemption to NSG rules granted to support its nuclear cooperation deal with Washington.
Germany has not opposed India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers group, and in fact is believed to have lobbied with Switzerland to drop its opposition.
Sources say Ms Swaraj also received a note from the Netherlands which repeated Germany's suggestion.
Ms Swaraj told parliament this week India continue to "engage with China" with the aim of winning Beijing's support and that India remains firm on not signing the NPT. The letters from Germany and the Netherlands indicate, however, that India will be pressured to enter other non-proliferation regimes if it wants to collect support for its application to the elite NSG.
http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/for-...up-nsg-germany-had-suggested-a-plan-b-1434817
The biggest benefit that India would get out of NSG membership is that it would sanction proof Indian civil nuclear program.
See, If India tests a nuclear bomb ,or for that any futuristic WMD (who said nukes are apex of WMD? There is clean-Fusion bomb tech that US is working on and in future, even antimatter bombs are possible), NSG could and would impose sanctions on Indian civil nuclear program ,thus voiding billion of dollars of investment that we had done in Civil nuclear reactors.
If India is inside NSG, such a sanction is not possible as India would veto it, and individual sanctions would not work even if a single supplier country oppose them.
See, If India tests a nuclear bomb ,or for that any futuristic WMD (who said nukes are apex of WMD? There is clean-Fusion bomb tech that US is working on and in future, even antimatter bombs are possible), NSG could and would impose sanctions on Indian civil nuclear program ,thus voiding billion of dollars of investment that we had done in Civil nuclear reactors.
If India is inside NSG, such a sanction is not possible as India would veto it, and individual sanctions would not work even if a single supplier country oppose them.
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Pakistan reaction on india Join MTCR .. Pakistani in pain
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Turkey backs India's bid to join NSG
New Delhi, Aug 20, 2016, DHNS:
Turkey on Friday confirmed its support for India’s membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group. It also prodded New Delhi to act against some institutions run by the followers of controversial US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen.
External Minister Sushma Swaraj was briefed by visiting Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on the role of Gulen and a network of his followers in the recent attempt to stage a coup in Turkey.
Cavusoglu pointed out that some of the followers of Gulen were running schools, colleges and other institutions in Mumbai, Hyderabad and other cities across India. He requested Swaraj to act against the institutions run by the network, sources said.
The Embassy of Turkey here had earlier conveyed to the Ministry of Home Affairs in New Delhi Ankara’s concerns over Gulen network’s footprints in India.
Sushma told Cavusoglu that the government would take necessary action after verifying the allegations against the institutions run by the followers of Gulen.
Gülen, a cleric, lives in Pennsylvania in the US. He runs the Gülen Movement, which, according to his website, is a “worldwide civic initiative rooted in the spiritual and humanistic tradition of Islam”.
The Turkish government led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim accused Fethullah Gülen of orchestrating the failed coup in Turkey last month.
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/565754/turkey-backs-indias-bid-join.html
As India renews NSG bid, Pak throws in a no n-testing pact spanner
File photo of Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Indian Prime minister Narendra Modi prior to a meeting at Hydrabad House in New Delhi. (Ajay Aggarwal / HT Photo )
Pakistani Prime Minister’s adviser on foreign affairs, Sartaj Aziz, initially announced the offer on August 12.
There was no formal reaction from external affairs ministry on this. But sources dismissed Pakistan efforts, saying “a country with known proliferation track record should not advise India on the issue.”
“In the larger interest of peace and stability in the region, as also in the global context, Pakistan has indicated the possibility that the two countries may consider a bilateral arrangement, which is reflective of its policy of promoting restraint and responsibility in South Asia and its consistent support for the objectives of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT),” Pakistan foreign office spokesperson said on Tuesday.
“The bilateral non-testing arrangement, if mutually agreed, could become binding immediately without waiting for the entry into force of the CTBT at the international level,” the spokesperson added.
Pakistan argues that while the unilateral moratoriums declared by the two countries were “voluntary” and “legally non-binding and could be withdrawn unilaterally, a bilateral arrangement will be mutually binding and difficult to withdraw from unilaterally”.
After the 1998 nuclear test, Pakistan proposed India that the two countries should adhere to CTBT simultaneously.
India did not support the CTBT - an arms control treaty - when it came to being in 1996 and still it doesn’t. The CTBT has 183 signatories and 163 ratifications.
Though India is not a signatory, it says a voluntary moratorium on testing nuclear weapons adheres to the basic principle of no testing of nuclear weapons.
Membership of the NSG would increase India’s international clout and provide a vested interest in curbing the world’s most dangerous regional arms race as well as expand its civilian nuclear programme to address its energy requirements.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india...act-spanner/story-15ifbfF5NUvIal0DlgRbcK.html
New Delhi, Aug 20, 2016, DHNS:
Turkey on Friday confirmed its support for India’s membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group. It also prodded New Delhi to act against some institutions run by the followers of controversial US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen.
External Minister Sushma Swaraj was briefed by visiting Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on the role of Gulen and a network of his followers in the recent attempt to stage a coup in Turkey.
Cavusoglu pointed out that some of the followers of Gulen were running schools, colleges and other institutions in Mumbai, Hyderabad and other cities across India. He requested Swaraj to act against the institutions run by the network, sources said.
The Embassy of Turkey here had earlier conveyed to the Ministry of Home Affairs in New Delhi Ankara’s concerns over Gulen network’s footprints in India.
Sushma told Cavusoglu that the government would take necessary action after verifying the allegations against the institutions run by the followers of Gulen.
Gülen, a cleric, lives in Pennsylvania in the US. He runs the Gülen Movement, which, according to his website, is a “worldwide civic initiative rooted in the spiritual and humanistic tradition of Islam”.
The Turkish government led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim accused Fethullah Gülen of orchestrating the failed coup in Turkey last month.
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/565754/turkey-backs-indias-bid-join.html
As India renews NSG bid, Pak throws in a no n-testing pact spanner
- Jayanth Jacob, Hindustan Times, New Delhi
| - Updated: Aug 17, 2016 15:15 IST
File photo of Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Indian Prime minister Narendra Modi prior to a meeting at Hydrabad House in New Delhi. (Ajay Aggarwal / HT Photo )
Pakistani Prime Minister’s adviser on foreign affairs, Sartaj Aziz, initially announced the offer on August 12.
There was no formal reaction from external affairs ministry on this. But sources dismissed Pakistan efforts, saying “a country with known proliferation track record should not advise India on the issue.”
“In the larger interest of peace and stability in the region, as also in the global context, Pakistan has indicated the possibility that the two countries may consider a bilateral arrangement, which is reflective of its policy of promoting restraint and responsibility in South Asia and its consistent support for the objectives of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT),” Pakistan foreign office spokesperson said on Tuesday.
“The bilateral non-testing arrangement, if mutually agreed, could become binding immediately without waiting for the entry into force of the CTBT at the international level,” the spokesperson added.
Pakistan argues that while the unilateral moratoriums declared by the two countries were “voluntary” and “legally non-binding and could be withdrawn unilaterally, a bilateral arrangement will be mutually binding and difficult to withdraw from unilaterally”.
After the 1998 nuclear test, Pakistan proposed India that the two countries should adhere to CTBT simultaneously.
India did not support the CTBT - an arms control treaty - when it came to being in 1996 and still it doesn’t. The CTBT has 183 signatories and 163 ratifications.
Though India is not a signatory, it says a voluntary moratorium on testing nuclear weapons adheres to the basic principle of no testing of nuclear weapons.
Membership of the NSG would increase India’s international clout and provide a vested interest in curbing the world’s most dangerous regional arms race as well as expand its civilian nuclear programme to address its energy requirements.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india...act-spanner/story-15ifbfF5NUvIal0DlgRbcK.html
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Commentary: India should join China in rising above differences, forging closer partnership
Source: Xinhua 2016-08-12 16:50:29
by Xinhua Writer Liu Chang
BEIJING, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- Conventional wisdom tells us that no two countries can agree on everything, and it would be smart for India to join China in rising above their differences.
Starting from Friday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi begins a three-day visit to India, the first for him in two years.
Many believe the trip aims to help rasp off the rough edges of the relationship between the world' s two leading developing countries, and build up consensus ahead of two important summits, the Group of 20 meeting in China and the BRICS gathering in India, to be held in the coming months.
As Beijing and New Delhi head into a season of intensive top-level diplomatic encounters that could well define the future of their partnership, the two need to work together to keep their disagreements in check.
What should be noted above all else is that India has wrongly blamed China for blocking its entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
So far, there is no precedent for a non-Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) signatory to become a NSG member. Many inside the body that monitors the global flow of nuclear materials insist prudence in handing a membership card to any non-treaty party.
However, New Delhi should not be downhearted as the door to the NSG is not tightly closed. But any future discussions need to be based on safeguarding an international nuclear non-proliferation mechanism, in which India itself has a huge stake.
In a join communique issued by the foreign ministers of China, India and Russia after they met in Moscow earlier this year, India agreed that the South China Sea issue should be addressed through talks between the parties concerned.
Given that the South China Sea correlates with China' s vital national interests, it is hoped that India would fully comprehend Beijing' s concerns, and continue to play a constructive role in maintaining peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific.
At the same time, the world' s two fastest-growing economies should maintain their positive momentum on bilateral ties that has been maintained in recent years, further deepen cooperation, especially in trade and commerce, and foster an even closer partnership.
In a time of lackluster global economic recovery, the two countries should team up to fend off trade protectionism, and make substantial efforts to bring the world' s economic house in order at the two key summits and beyond.
As key emerging markets, the two nations, by standing together hand in hand, can be a strong voice for the developing world, and render the global economic governance system fairer and more justice.
When it comes to addressing some of the world's most pressing challenges such as climate change, the fight against terrorism and food security, the two most populous BRICS members share great potential to do even more.
China and India are partners, not rivals, and as long as they can properly handle their differences with sincerity and political dexterity, bilateral ties will grow stronger while the two become a force for good around the world.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-08/12/c_135590785.htm
Xinhua commentary hints at NSG-SCS quid pro quo
Atul Aneja
PTI
Chinese Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi meeting Goa Governor Mridula Sinha at Raj Bhavan in Donapaula, Goa on Friday. A Xinhua write-up that appeared on Friday underscored that India should not consider that its entry into the NSG is “tightly closed,” indicating a softening of Beijing's stand on the entry of India into the elite club..
As Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi began his three-day visit India visit from Goa, a commentary in the state-run Xinhua news agency that appeared on Friday was not far from linking New Delhi’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) with the South China Sea (SCS) issue.
The juxtaposition of the two themes, which have recently become a cause for friction between the two countries, appeared under the title, “India should join China in rising above differences, forging closer partnership.”
Slight softening of NSG stand
The write-up underscored that India should not consider that its entry into the NSG is “tightly closed”. It pointed out that “so far, there is no precedent for a non-Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) signatory to become a NSG member”. But it added: “However, New Delhi should not be downhearted as the door to the NSG is not tightly closed. But any future discussions need to be based on safeguarding an international nuclear non-proliferation mechanism, in which India itself has a huge stake.”
Quid pro quo hinted at
Without stating that a quid pro quo could be in the offing, the article, nevertheless followed its observations on India’s stalled bid for the NSG with an elaboration of the SCS issue — especially, highlighting New Delhi’s support for a dialogue “between the parties concerned” during the Foreign Ministerial meeting of the Russia-India-China (RIC) trilateral earlier this year.
“In a joint communiqué issued by the Foreign Ministers of China, India and Russia after they met in Moscow earlier this year, India agreed that the SCS issue should be addressed through talks between the parties concerned,” the commentary observed.
After U.S., Japan stepped into SCS issue
China’s insistence on a direct dialogue among the disputants follows its angst against the involvement of outside powers, especially the United States and Japan, in the SCS arena. China’s sensitivities have been further heightened after an international tribunal at The Hague, in its ruling rejected Beijing’s claims in the SCS.
“Given that the SCS correlates with China' s vital national interests, it is hoped that India would fully comprehend Beijing' s concerns, and continue to play a constructive role in maintaining peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific,” said the commentary.
India has faulted China for blocking its entry in the 48-nation NSG, which controls the global flow of nuclear material and technology. The Xinhua write-up, however, stressed that “India has wrongly blamed China for blocking its entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).”
‘Emerging countries will feel cheated’
Earlier in an interview with The Hindu, Han Hua, director for Arms Control and Disarmament at Peking University, had observed that making an exception for India to join the NSG as a nuclear weapon State was also likely to trigger resistance from some emerging countries such as Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, as well as Kazakhstan. These nations, which had given up nuclear weapons capability or atomic weapons at one stage, were bound to “feel cheated” if India was “rewarded” because, unlike them, it persisted in pursuing atomic weapons.
The article noted that the two countries need to work together to keep their disagreements in check, as they entered “a season of intensive top-level diplomatic encounters that could well define the future of their partnership”
http://www.thehindu.com/news/intern...nts-at-nsgscs-quid-pro-quo/article8984358.ece
The shocker would be when China comes onboard.
China is already negotiating a NSG-SCS quid pro quo
Source: Xinhua 2016-08-12 16:50:29
by Xinhua Writer Liu Chang
BEIJING, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- Conventional wisdom tells us that no two countries can agree on everything, and it would be smart for India to join China in rising above their differences.
Starting from Friday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi begins a three-day visit to India, the first for him in two years.
Many believe the trip aims to help rasp off the rough edges of the relationship between the world' s two leading developing countries, and build up consensus ahead of two important summits, the Group of 20 meeting in China and the BRICS gathering in India, to be held in the coming months.
As Beijing and New Delhi head into a season of intensive top-level diplomatic encounters that could well define the future of their partnership, the two need to work together to keep their disagreements in check.
What should be noted above all else is that India has wrongly blamed China for blocking its entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
So far, there is no precedent for a non-Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) signatory to become a NSG member. Many inside the body that monitors the global flow of nuclear materials insist prudence in handing a membership card to any non-treaty party.
However, New Delhi should not be downhearted as the door to the NSG is not tightly closed. But any future discussions need to be based on safeguarding an international nuclear non-proliferation mechanism, in which India itself has a huge stake.
In a join communique issued by the foreign ministers of China, India and Russia after they met in Moscow earlier this year, India agreed that the South China Sea issue should be addressed through talks between the parties concerned.
Given that the South China Sea correlates with China' s vital national interests, it is hoped that India would fully comprehend Beijing' s concerns, and continue to play a constructive role in maintaining peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific.
At the same time, the world' s two fastest-growing economies should maintain their positive momentum on bilateral ties that has been maintained in recent years, further deepen cooperation, especially in trade and commerce, and foster an even closer partnership.
In a time of lackluster global economic recovery, the two countries should team up to fend off trade protectionism, and make substantial efforts to bring the world' s economic house in order at the two key summits and beyond.
As key emerging markets, the two nations, by standing together hand in hand, can be a strong voice for the developing world, and render the global economic governance system fairer and more justice.
When it comes to addressing some of the world's most pressing challenges such as climate change, the fight against terrorism and food security, the two most populous BRICS members share great potential to do even more.
China and India are partners, not rivals, and as long as they can properly handle their differences with sincerity and political dexterity, bilateral ties will grow stronger while the two become a force for good around the world.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-08/12/c_135590785.htm
Xinhua commentary hints at NSG-SCS quid pro quo
Atul Aneja
PTI
Chinese Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi meeting Goa Governor Mridula Sinha at Raj Bhavan in Donapaula, Goa on Friday. A Xinhua write-up that appeared on Friday underscored that India should not consider that its entry into the NSG is “tightly closed,” indicating a softening of Beijing's stand on the entry of India into the elite club..
As Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi began his three-day visit India visit from Goa, a commentary in the state-run Xinhua news agency that appeared on Friday was not far from linking New Delhi’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) with the South China Sea (SCS) issue.
The juxtaposition of the two themes, which have recently become a cause for friction between the two countries, appeared under the title, “India should join China in rising above differences, forging closer partnership.”
Slight softening of NSG stand
The write-up underscored that India should not consider that its entry into the NSG is “tightly closed”. It pointed out that “so far, there is no precedent for a non-Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) signatory to become a NSG member”. But it added: “However, New Delhi should not be downhearted as the door to the NSG is not tightly closed. But any future discussions need to be based on safeguarding an international nuclear non-proliferation mechanism, in which India itself has a huge stake.”
Quid pro quo hinted at
Without stating that a quid pro quo could be in the offing, the article, nevertheless followed its observations on India’s stalled bid for the NSG with an elaboration of the SCS issue — especially, highlighting New Delhi’s support for a dialogue “between the parties concerned” during the Foreign Ministerial meeting of the Russia-India-China (RIC) trilateral earlier this year.
“In a joint communiqué issued by the Foreign Ministers of China, India and Russia after they met in Moscow earlier this year, India agreed that the SCS issue should be addressed through talks between the parties concerned,” the commentary observed.
After U.S., Japan stepped into SCS issue
China’s insistence on a direct dialogue among the disputants follows its angst against the involvement of outside powers, especially the United States and Japan, in the SCS arena. China’s sensitivities have been further heightened after an international tribunal at The Hague, in its ruling rejected Beijing’s claims in the SCS.
“Given that the SCS correlates with China' s vital national interests, it is hoped that India would fully comprehend Beijing' s concerns, and continue to play a constructive role in maintaining peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific,” said the commentary.
India has faulted China for blocking its entry in the 48-nation NSG, which controls the global flow of nuclear material and technology. The Xinhua write-up, however, stressed that “India has wrongly blamed China for blocking its entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).”
‘Emerging countries will feel cheated’
Earlier in an interview with The Hindu, Han Hua, director for Arms Control and Disarmament at Peking University, had observed that making an exception for India to join the NSG as a nuclear weapon State was also likely to trigger resistance from some emerging countries such as Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, as well as Kazakhstan. These nations, which had given up nuclear weapons capability or atomic weapons at one stage, were bound to “feel cheated” if India was “rewarded” because, unlike them, it persisted in pursuing atomic weapons.
The article noted that the two countries need to work together to keep their disagreements in check, as they entered “a season of intensive top-level diplomatic encounters that could well define the future of their partnership”
http://www.thehindu.com/news/intern...nts-at-nsgscs-quid-pro-quo/article8984358.ece
The shocker would be when China comes onboard.
China is already negotiating a NSG-SCS quid pro quo
i can apply ? i am very good in bla bla as you all know
You have my vote ... For whatever you stand for
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