China

attempt to block

diplomatic outreach

As its NSG bid fails, India says Paris Climate Agreement ratification may be delayed

NEW DELHI: India's high energy, high profile campaign to get into the NSG failed Friday morning, asremained adamantly opposed to even considering the issue.After a plenary meeting in Seoul, which saw Chinese diplomatseven a discussion, the 48-member nuclear cartel could not take a decision on India's membership.A last minuteby Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Chinese president Xi Jinping also failed to cut any ice.A big outcome of the NSG failure is that India will now not ratify the Paris Agreement anytime soon. That agreement is a key element of US President Barack Obama's legacy.The Indian statement says clearly, "An early positive decision by the NSG would have allowed us to move forward on the Paris Agreement." This will be a big blow to the Obama administration which wanted India to ratify the pact so it could enter into force.It was understood that an NSG membership would help India clear the Paris Agreement.In the end, diplomats said 38 countries declared outright support for India's accession, while nine others held out questions on procedure. China however maintained its line against India which helped to sway fence-sitters like Ireland, New Zealand and Austria, who pushed for a process and criteria to determine entry of non-NPT countries.Others like Switzerland spoke about rules of entry but supported India, said sources in the room. China's closest ally was Turkey, they said.The NSG non-decision on India's membership will have implications for India's bilateral relations with China. While no one was willing to go public, China's open hostility to India's global aspirations is now out in the open, which will make it difficult, coming as it does after China's refusal to sanction terror leader Masood Azhar.Chinese diplomats exercised a filibuster for the better part of Thursday to block a discussion on India. They only relented to a three-hour discussion on "technical, Legal and Political Aspects of the Participation of non-NPT States in the NSG" on condition that there would be no decision.Ultimately, it took the joint efforts of the western countries, UK, Germany, France, Australia and US to build in an escape clause for India in the NSG plenary statement. The key sentence there, "Participating Governments reiterated their firm support for the full, complete and effective implementation of the NPT as the cornerstone of the international non-proliferation regime" was amended by some countries to include the word "implementation of the NPT" rather than "adherence" to NPT. This helps India revisit the NSG membership question later this year or the next NSG plenary in Switzerland.India has maintained that even as a non-NPT nation, it had implemented all NPT commitments.A less remarked aspect of the NSG meeting was the lack of high level American support for India. Sources in Washington said the Obama administration put some of its middle level bureaucrats to make the necessary calls on India's behalf, which doesn't carry adequate heft. Unlike in 2008, when George Bush and Condoleezza Rice took a personal interest, there was no intervention by either Obama or Kerry. That made it easier for China to maintain its tough position, without adequate pushback from the US.China's insistence on NPT as criteria was clarified by its senior foreign ministry official, Wang Qun. Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the NSG, he said, "If exceptions are allowed here or there on the question of NPT, the international non-proliferation order will collapse altogether… NPT is a must. In other words, the applicant state shall be party to the NPT." China has been a major proliferator of nuclear and missile technology to North Korea and Pakistan, so its insistence on NPT as a cornerstone of the non-proliferation regime is ironic.A dejected MEA pointedly referred to "procedural hurdles persistently raised by one country" behind the NSG impasse. Responding to China's suggestion on the NPT, MEA said, "Our stand on the NPT is well known. But let me underline that in September 2008, the NSG itself addressed this issue. Paragraph 1 (a) of the September 2008 decision states that the decision on India contributes to the "widest possible implementation of the provisions and objectives of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons". There is thus no contradiction between the NPT and India's closer engagement with the NSG."The Modi government might come in for some flak for the failure to get an NSG decision, especially after mounting such a big campaign. But top level sources in government said, "we tried to the best of our ability, that we consider to be more important."