China adamant on blocking India’s entry into global nuclear commerce club

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Photo courtesy: Pioneer

(TibetanReview.net, Jun22’19) –China has made it clear that it will continue to be the most outspoken opponent of letting India join the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the 48-state-member grouping which regulates the global nuclear commerce.

Ever since India applied for the membership of the NSG in May 2016, China has been insisting that only those countries which have signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) should be allowed to enter the organisation. It has been demanding a ‘Consensus’ on Allowing Non-NPT Countries into the club, being itself the main cause of the lack of consensus.

Pakistan too had applied for the NSG membership in 2016 and China’s agenda is seen to be to get it also into the NSG although it has an abysmal non-proliferation record.

Asked whether China would change its stand on India’s entry into the NSG, which was holding its plenary meeting in Kazakhstan’s Astana over Jun 20-21, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang gas said the group will not discuss the entry of countries who have not signed the NPT “before reaching a specific plan”.

Blocking India’s entry into the NSG, China has previously called for a two-step plan that stipulates the need for the NSG members to arrive at a set of principles for the entry of non-NPT states and then move forward discussions of specific cases.

When told of India’s assertion that majority of the NSG member states backed its entry while China continued to block it, Lu has said, “I cannot say for India whether China is blocking it. But I must say that the NSG is a non-proliferation mechanism multilaterally and there are certain rules and procedures and all members must follow the rules and procedures. And the decisions must be based on consensus.”

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