INDIAS QUEST FOR NSG MEMBERSHIP

India has sought NSG membership since 2008. India had been fast-pacing its pitch for
membership to the 48-member nuclear club. Pakistan had also submitted the application to
join the NSG, just days after India.
There was no decision on Indias application for membership in the June plenary of NSG.
Although it has been able to secure membership at other platforms such as MTCR.
India faced opposition from China and other countries. Government officials held that at least
32 countries had made positive interventions on Indias behalf, but the NSGs actions are
governed by consensus and not by majority.
Disappointed by the outcome, the government lashed out at China in a veiled reference to
one country, that had persistently raised procedural hurdles, and said that an early
decision on [Indias] application remains in larger global interest.
In practical terms, the outcome of the Seoul NSG session is a setback to Indias declared
efforts for immediate membership at the NSG, Moreover, the government warned that it
could impact Indias quest for clean energy in the near future.
India has since tried to extract statements of support from the holdout countries that didnt
back India during the June plenary of NSG.

-Views of Rakesh Sood:

Agreeing to formally join the NSG and the other export control regimes such as the Australia
Group, the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), and the Wassenaar Arrangement
reflects a policy shift by the Indian government. During the Cold War, India had been critical
of these regimes condemning them as mechanism to deny technology to developing
countries although, in practice, India has maintained equally strict controls on exports of
sensitive materials and technologies. In the run up to the 2008 waiver, India began to modify
its position and demonstrate its credentials as a responsible nuclear weapon state.

-Views of T.P. Sreenivasan:

India did not allow itself time to explain the rationale of its policy change, not only to the
NSG members but also the other adherents to the NPT. This also explains the hesitations of
many friendly countries to support it.
First and foremost, credibility is the hallmark of success in the international community.
Policy changes should appear slow, deliberate and logical. Sudden shifts and turns are viewed
with suspicion. India had a fundamental position that our objective is disarmament and not
merely non-proliferation.

Our sudden anxiety to join the NSG and other non-proliferation groupings is a departure from
the traditional Indian position, particularly since we have not fully utilised the waiver given to
us by the NSG. The art of persuasion works only when the ground is prepared and there is a
degree of satisfaction for all parties involved. Indias NSG push violated this sacred principle.
Indias miscalculation on the NSG membership was a foreign policy fiasco, which not only
resulted in a rebuff to India but also gave a veto to China on Indias nuclear credentials
andhyphenated India and Pakistan.
Moreover, we have elevated NSG membership to such heights that it appears more important
and urgent than other items on our wish list such as permanent membership of the UN
Security Council, signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a nuclear weapon
state, and membership of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

POSSIBLE BENEFITS OF NSG MEMBERSHIP:

NSG membership is an assertion of right. When the one-time NSG waiver was granted to India
in 2008, India agreed that it would abide by any rules that NSG may make in the future. Being
inside would mean participating in that rule-making.
Besides, NSG membership will give India a chance to expose Pakistans terrible proliferation
record.

OPPOSITION FROM CHINA:

Indias membership to the NSG was opposed primarily by China, among other countries.
However, China claimed that it had not opposed Indias membership per se, and that NSG
sessions had only spoken broadly of non-NPT states.
Others who raised a similar opposition were Austria, Ireland, New Zealand and Switzerland.
Some nations like Brazil and Turkey called for a criteria-based process to be put in place
first.
Both India and China have since initiated a separate dialogue process on this issue. Leaders
from the two countries have discussed this on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in September
and the BRICS Summit recently held in India.

REASONS FOR CHINAs MOVE:

According to China, only those countries should be granted membership, who are signatory to
NPT. It believes that for admission the NSG has 5 criteria for members, most noticeably the
NPT. This is not a rule set by China, this is the rule set by the NSG and reaffirmed by the
international community.

There have also been other viewpoints behind Chinas move:

Some believe thatChina is just posturing, taking a hard stance against India, only to
sacrifice its position later in the hope of muting global opposition to its moves in the
South China Sea.

There is also hope that China may trade-off its opposition in return for its own
membership into the Missile Technology Control Regime.

However, going by Beijings statements, it is clear that China will agree only if Pakistan
is also admitted into the NSG. But nobody will let that happen given the countrys
terrible proliferation track record.

-Views of Pratap Bhanu Mehta:

Indian discourse on the temporary setback in pursuing membership of the Nuclear Suppliers
Group has become a game of smoke and mirrors. There is no dishonour in trying for NSG
membership and challenging an exclusionary global order.But what is worrying about this
engagement is the false pretences under which we undertook it. The issue is not our claims;
the issue is our capacity to delude ourselves about what we were doing.
The delusion came at 3 levels:
1. The first was a delusion about our own interests. Even if NSG membership was
desirable, is the political capital invested in this venture worth the costs? India still
enjoys plenty of benefits it got from the 2008 waiver.
If the domestic criticism has been high, it is because government raised the pitch: It
appeared desperate to project a political triumph where a routine handling might have
served it better.
2. The second delusion was about the international order. The cardinal fact about
international politics at the moment is this. China has a more aggressive outward
posture and it is seeking its due. Its concern with India, contrary to what we think, is
incidental. But it is deeply concerned with the US.
That concern will now manifest in the ambition that it will not allow the US to write
the rules of the international order according to its wishes. It will show that the US
cannot claim hegemony over redefining the rules of the game.
It is also important not to belittle the hesitations and ambiguities shown by countries
like Brazil and others. These countries are not insignificant. But more importantly,
they are all interested in what kind of a power India will be, and whether India will
follow in the footsteps of the great power exceptionalism of US and China when it
comes to international law.
3. The third delusion is the cynical use to which the American security lobby is putting
this episode.

The lesson from this episode is that until India has the power to dictate terms it is in
our interest to be an arena of great power agreement.Whether Pakistan or NSG, the
US alone cannot deliver what we want.
The idea of strategic autonomy requires that each issue should be taken on its merits;
we should not close off options by overblown pre-commitments. We need to find ways
of putting pressure on China.

-Views of Rakesh Sood

Pakistans application to join the NSG, made just days after Indias request, was clearly part
of a coordinated strategy with China to block Indias admittance.
Chinese statements that Indias entry into the NSG would upset the balance in South Asia also
revealed Beijings preference to keep India hyphenated with Pakistan and locked into regional
frameworks.
China also used procedural debates on the technical, legal, and political aspects behind the
participation of non-NPT states, to block a decision at Seoul. A number of smaller countries
that take a somewhat evangelical view of the NPT and are active supporters of the
humanitarian initiative against nuclear weapons, thus, fell for the Chinese ploy.
In hindsight, India underestimated Chinas opposition. As compared to 2008, when it had to
reluctantly agree for the waiver, China is now more assertive.

-Views of Rajesh Rajagopalan (JNU Professor)

Though India did not get the membership, this will be policy failure only if India fails to
respond to what is clearly yet another indicator of Chinas determined effort at containment
of India.
India does not need NSG membership in order to engage in nuclear commerce, of course. But
the NSG makes the rules for such commerce and it is always possible that they can frame
rules in future that will hurt Indias interests. Additionally, Indias road to a partnership in
global governance is ill-served if there are governance groups that explicitly leave India out.
India had no reason but to apply in a high profile way for the following reasons:

To convince many friendly states who had legitimate concerns about NPT and the
nonproliferation regime, concerns that were not motivated by any balance of power
considerations (unlike Chinas opposition). This required an argument to be made, and
making this argument to a number of international partners meant that this could no
longer be a low-profile effort.

India had to appear motivated so that well-wishers press Indias case with other NSG
members and smoothen the way for the application.

The third reason is probably the most important: strategy. Raising the stakes was
necessary to concentrate the minds of all the members. Simply put, raising the stakes
reduced the opposition.

Moreover, it would be a mistake to see Indias application as being the victim of a US-China
power struggle or that Chinas opposition was a response to Indias increasing closeness to US.
Chinas strategy has been consistent since the 1960s and its sole objective was the
containment of India. China containment strategy shows little correlation with the state of
US-India relations.
With respect to Indias future response:

Since Chinas move was primarily a balance of power move, Indias response should
also be on that particular chessboard. India can imitate what China is doing with
Pakistan: build up the military capabilities of others on Chinas periphery who share
Indias worry about China. This can take the form of military assistance as well as
training and other forms of cooperation.

India should also ask its existing partners to expand the Malabar naval exercise to
include all other countries in the Asia-Pacific that are worried about China.

Finally, India should restart the Quadrilateral Strategic Dialogue that was suspended
because of Chinas objections (and Australian reticence) but seek, once again, to
include others such as Vietnam, Philippines and even Indonesia.

-Views of Manoj Joshi,

One of the main reasons for Chinas actions in the NSG is that it is today an Asian regional
power, aspiring to global primacy, and it is not about to give India, a regional state with some
geoeconomic and military heft, a leg up.
Realist international discourse is built on the principle of give and take and, as the adage
goes, there are no free lunches. Each country ruthlessly pursues its national interest and if
other states get in the way, they find ways of winning them over, neutralising them or
punishing them. Kautilyan injunctions call for pitilessly
usingsaam(suasion),daam(purchase), dand(punishment) andbhed(division) as the ways
of getting on in the real world. Thus, there are Kautilyan lessons that India needs to learn
from the NSG fiasco.
Outfits like the NSG are not about international law, but about geopolitics. Chinas views are
not too difficult to understand. Of all the Asian countries that have the potential to rival
China in terms of geographical spread, military power and economy, India does. China has no
intention of aiding a rivals rise, even if that rival is way behind it. It is, of course, ready for
normal relations, one involving carefully calibrated give and take.

The second lesson of international politics India needs to learn is that geopolitics always
trumps world order. And of all the countries that have excelled in exploiting this, Pakistan is
without a peer. Today it has convinced China that its best chance of getting into the NSG lies
in appending its application to that of India.

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE?

-Views of T. P. Sreenivasan
In bilateral relations, the reality of power is what matters and deals can be struck on the
basis of give and take. But the dynamics of multilateral diplomacy depend on equations that
go beyond the actual size and power of individual countries. Often, clever use of the rules of
procedure alone can bestow extraordinary powers on nations.
India could have pursued membership of the NSG quietly, without making any claims of
support from anyone. We should have handled the issue with dignified detachment and
waited for a consensus to emerge among the interested countries. If only we had played by
the rules of the multilateral game, the Seoul fiasco could have been turned into a victory.