India and NSG Membership: Is China at Fault?

       India applied for NSG membership on 12 May 2016, although according to the MEA spokesperson the engagement began some 12 years ago. The point to note, the spokesperson emphasized, was that 'this is not a new subject'. However India's hopes for membership were belied at the Seoul plenary session of the 48 NSG member countries meeting; for as the MEA spokesperson put it "one country" raised procedural hurdles consistently. It is a no brainer that he was singling out China for the obstruction.
* The Chinese delegate to the Seoul plenary Wang Qun, however, maintained that "China does not support Pakistan or India to enter the NSG until they follow rules established by NSG members. NSG consensus is in favor of the NPT, hope India will join first. Rules are not made by China, but by the group as a whole[emphasis added]'.
* At the conclusion of the Seoul meeting the NSG member states issued a two page statement, but the key para was that NSG members reiterated the "firm support for the full, complete and effective implementation of the NPT as the cornerstone of the international non-proliferation regime[emphasis added]".
* Of note is the fact that all of India's friends, including the US and France, are a party to this NSG statement!
* But look a little closer at the NSG and its rules and guidelines. The NSG has already made its rules that cover every aspect of the nuclear trade and it has also spelt out its trigger lists. Complying with the "demands" of the US Congress, India has already harmonized its export control legislation with those of the NSG. The original NSG guidelines were first established in 1978 and subsequently revised in 1992. In 2010 the NSG adopted 54 amendments and issued them in 2013.
*The crucial point is that under paras 6 and 7 of the new guidelines nuclear trade and re-processing is prohibited with any country that has not signed the NPT. This means that, even if we become full members of the NSG, no country can co-operate with India [emphasis added]. But India obtained a waiver in 2008 and that still holds.
* It is not in the public domain if India protested or contested these new guidelines as clearly the 2010 amendments were set to target India.
*But these are not technical matters alone. Politics plays a major role. When China decided to supply nuclear reactors to Pakistan in the  last few years, under the spurious plea that these were being "grand-fathered", no NSG member including the US objected, as clearly they should have done for gross violations of NSG guidelines. All 47 NSG members looked the other way and China continues to supply nuclear reactors to Pakistan even as the latter is not under any safe-guarded regime.
*It is also not in the public domain whether the MEA consulted other stake holders on the proposed initiative that put our President and PM so visibly on line. Certainly as MR Srinivasan, Member of the Atomic Energy Commission, has publicly stated the AEC was not consulted.
*If our Ambassador to China was consulted, did he not warn that the Chinese position had hardened to a point that they would disregard any request, even if it came from the US? Certainly the US, unlike in 2008, did not take up India's case at the President's level, but simply left it to the Secretary of State to write an inconsequential letter pleading for India's membership. The Chinese would immediately have noticed the difference and concluded that it was not worthwhile spending political capital on a lame duck US administration.
*Clearly the MEA should have forewarned the political leadership of the state of play in the international arena and the fact that 2016 was vastly different from 2008, particularly as it pertained to the balance of power equation between the US and China. Not only that, but the Sino-Pak nexus has significantly hardened since then. China has demonstrated its capability to look after its client state! There is no point in castigating China when we may not have done our homework. 
       

How will China react after UNCLOS Tribunal ruling on SCS?

     It is widely believed and the Chinese themselves seem to concede that the UNCLOS Tribunal ruling on the SCS dispute, due shortly, would in all probability go against them. The question on everyone's mind is: How will the Chinese react?
* The core Chinese arguments are contained in three basic points. These are [1] that the UNCLOS Tribunal has no legal right to hear the Filipino case. [2] that it is the US that is instigating the 'trouble' in the SCS area and [3] that China is the unintended 'victim' of this American ploy.
* Another question that arises is that do the Chinese consider their territorial claims in the SCS as "core national" interests? For if they do, then the whole complexion of their response would change.
* In March 2010 the NYT reported that the Chinese, for the first time, in a meeting attended by NSC Asia Director, Jaffrey Bader and Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg had confirmed to them that their territorial claims in the SCS were indeed "core" interests. This was followed by the then Chinese Counselor Dai Bingguo telling Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in May 2010 in Washington that this was indeed so. She later confirmed this at a press conference in Australia.
* After President Xi Jinping assumed office in 2012 there has been "strategic ambiguity" in that the Chinese officials have neither denied nor confirmed whether their claims in the SCS were of "core interest". This position remains till today. In other words, the Chinese have maintained diplomatic flexibility and practiced "strategic ambiguity".
* The Chinese rightly complain that all the major countries, such as the US and Japan, that are loudly proclaiming the need to "respect" international law are themselves violators when it suits them. For example, Japan has completely ignored the ICJ ruling of 2014 on whaling operations that went against Japan. Similarly the US ignored the 1986 ICJ ruling on support to contra rebels in Nicaragua that went against it. So to loudly rail against China on not following international law rulings is to say the very least "hypocritical".
*China will play the "victimhood" card as vociferously as possible, since it has internal political dimensions. Already Xu Hong, Director General of the Chinese Foreign Office characterized the expected ruling as a "vicious act". Not to be left behind the Chinese Ambassador to the EU said that "China is a victim of the SCS issue" and Xu Bu the Chinese Ambassador to ASEAN accused Washington as the "conspirator behind this move" and that the US was "dictatorial and over-bearing".
* That the Chinese are going out of their way to line up support from diverse countries such as Kenya, Vanuata, Afghanistan etc. indicates that the expected ruling would probably  have internal repercussions on the ruling group within the CCP.
* The Chinese will ignore the ruling, since it can not be enforced, but will mount a huge propaganda effort against it to show to their domestic audience that the Chinese have been unfairly treated.
* As Fu Ying, Chairperson of the NPC said in the US recently that when it comes to Chinese territory, China will give "not an inch".
* So expect a large scale outpouring of nationalist sentiment, perhaps even large scale demonstrations and an even more rigid Chinese stance. The SCS area is likely to see some turbulent times; but in all probability the jousting would hopefully remain verbal!        
   

Fiasco at China -ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting at Beijing

           Last Tuesday the China-ASEAN Foreign Ministers meeting took place in Beijing to discuss the vexed South China Sea dispute and the impending ruling of the Hague Tribunal, widely expected to go against China. The problem that arose was how to characterize the meeting and on how to present its conclusions to the public and the press. And that's where the problem arose and the farce began.
* First the Singapore FM who was to hold a joint press briefing with his Chinese counterpart, openly walked out of the briefing allegedly as the Chinese FM tried to put pressure on him to "soften" the rhetoric. The Singapore FM was there as the representative of the 10 ASEAN FMs.
* Next the Malaysians issued a statement that was strongly worded, on behalf of the ASEAN group, that voiced "serious concern" and "opposed" China's militarization and land reclamation in the SCS area.
*Hours later the Malaysians retracted the statement and said that a revised statement would be issued. None has been issued so far. Apparently the Malaysians beat the gun, since no ASEAN consensus had been achieved before they issued the statement.
*Thereafter several ASEAN states issued their own individual statements. The Vietnamese statement came closest to the original Malaysian statement.
*Not to be left behind, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson maintained that any ASEAN statement issued did not reflect the "official" stance of the ASEAN states during the meetings. The Chinese also maintained that the Singapore FM has not walked out of the joint press briefing, but had left as he had a plane to catch!
*The ASEAN Secretariat then clarified that they had not received any joint ASEAN FMs statement from the member states and as such there was nothing to circulate.
* The above fiasco just shows that ASEAN member states are very divided on how to deal with China. They cannot even formulate a joint statement. Just to recap, except for tiny Brunei, China is the largest trading partner of all other ASEAN states. China has been very indulgent in advancing aid, loans etc. to all of them.
* Thus who wants to give up the Chinese largess?     

Travails of Chinese Students

     Last week about 9.4 million Chinese high school graduate students sat for entrance exams, known locally as gaokao, in a fierce competition for a place in Chinese universities for higher education. As in India so in China, this was a moment of great stress and anxiety not only for the students, but also for their anxious parents. For at stake were their future careers and prospects for jobs in an increasingly difficult environment, considering that China is at present going through an economic downward slide where lucrative jobs are becoming increasingly harder to find.
*In the Chinese system there is one national exam [gaokao] for the whole country, where the position gained by a student determines which university he/she would be admitted. The higher the position obtained in the exam, the more renowned the university available.
*Of the 100 top universities in the world, 4 Chinese universities figure; namely Tsinghua, Peking U, Fudan and Shanghai Jiao Tong U. It is the ambition of most Chinese students and their parents for them to obtain admission in the above top four universities. Once a student gains admission in the top four, he/she is assured of an "iron rice bowl" [colloquial Chinese for assured employment]. On the other hand, there is no Indian university that figures in the world's top 100!
*In 1949 when the People's Republic was founded there were only 117,000 students in the whole of China. By 2015, the figure had increased to 37 million making it the largest student population in the world. This massive increase is one of the reasons for China's rapid economic growth.
*As the exams are tough and very competitive there is considerable family pressure on the students to do well and this in turn has led to allegations of cheating. The most common practice is to use wireless sets and substitute exam sitters.
* Taking cognizance of this practice the Chinese authorities have recently introduced draconian laws. Cheaters caught and convicted will now be given 7 year jail terms under amended laws and disbarred from other national exams for a period of 3 years. The severity of the sentences would indicate the scale of the problem of cheating that exists.
*On the other hand, there has been an uproar and even some angry demonstrations,particularly by parents, over the authorities decision to allocate extra seats to students from the poorer western provinces of China.
*Although there is no formal "reservation" system in China, minority communities have benefited from affirmative action. For example, this year 3,800 Tibetan students will get "extra" points for the gaokao exam. In Xinjiang in 2015, minority students were given 50 "extra points" if either parent belonged to one of the 11 ethnic groups identified by the authorities. Interestingly, this concession is limited to only if the student came from one of the four prefectures identified; namely Hotan, Kashgar, Aksu and Kizilsu Kirgiz.
 * According to the China Youth Daily in 2014, more than 64% of the 46,659 respondents polled believed that "extra points" harmed the interests of the majority Han community [emphasis added].
* Although never officially admitted it is believed that suicides amongst failed students is fairly common, but nevertheless China continues to produce some outstanding students.
* It would thus seem that this is one area where problems faced are common for both China and India!

      

Taiwan President Tsai, China and Women

     Last week Tsai Ing-wen was sworn in as the first female President of Taiwan. She is single and an alumni of London School of Economics [LSE] and Cornell University.

*In an opinion piece by Wang Weixing that was published in the International Herald; a Xinhua run newspaper, the author suggested that:

    [Tsai Ing-wen] as a single female politician, she does not have the emotional burden of love of family or children. So her political style and strategy tend to be emotional, personalized and extreme. Wang further suggested that when the Chinese leadership deals with President Tsai ‘we should bear in mind important factors such as her experience, personality and mind-set’ [emphasis added].

*A spokesman for the Taiwanese President declined comment.

*Nevertheless, there was such outrage expressed by ordinary Chinese citizens on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, that the authorities were forced to withdraw the offensive article.

*Oddly, there is no female member serving on the elite seven members Standing Committee of the Politburo that actually governs China. There are only two female members on the 25 member Politburo. In the Central Committee, the number of female members has actually fallen from 7.6 per cent in 1969 to 4.9 per cent at present. Of the 31 provincial governors there is only one female governor.

* The Chinese authorities also disallowed celebrations to mark the 20^th anniversary of the UN’s Fourth Conference on Women held earlier at Beijing in 1995.

* The above attitude contrasts sharply with what President Xi Jinping told the UN last year that:

       We must build-up women’s capacity of playing their part in society and the economy and involve women in the higher levels of decision making and support them in being leaders in political, business and academic fields.

*Thus it would appear the male chauvinism is alive and well in China.

Vajpayee, Nuclear Policy and China--Quest for NSG Membership

   

      An Op-ed article in the Indian Express [24 May2016] “What Pranab Must Say to Beijing” has the following advice:

The current political dispensation in Delhi may neither forgive nor forget Beijing’s blocking maneuver at the NSG. President Mukherji would also want to remind Beijing that an earlier BJP led government did not mince words in declaring the China threat and Beijing’s nuclear cooperation with Pakistan as the main reasons for India to go nuclear in 1998. That in turn had a chilling effect on bilateral relations for a brief while.

But what are the facts?

*India carried out two nuclear tests on 11 and 13 May 1998.
 *On 11 May PM Vajpayee wrote a confidential letter to President Clinton on the nuclear tests. The key para was as follows:
      It was necessary to carry it out as India had an overt nuclear state on its borders that had carried out armed aggression against India in 1962 and that although relations had somewhat improved yet an atmosphere of distrust persists mainly due to the unresolved border problem.  

*PM Vajpayee’s confidential letter was promptly leaked, reportedly by the White House, to the New York Times which published the full text on 13 May 1998.
*As could be expected, the Chinese were livid with anger against India.
*On 3 June 1998, President Jiang Zemin told AFP that ‘as India had originated the tense situation in the region, it was India that would have to untie the knot [emphasis added]’; if relations were to move forward.
* Meanwhile working in tandem, both the US and China co-sponsored UNSC resolution 1172 that not only ‘condemned’ the nuclear tests, but demanded both of India and Pakistan to refrain from further tests.
* President Clinton visited China and in a joint presidential statement issued on 27 June 1998 stated that both countries had a ‘shared interest’ in a strong non-proliferation regime in South Asia. Both US and China agreed to work closely together.
* When on 9 July 1998 India offered to sign a ‘no first use’ agreement with China, the latter point blank refused.
*Thus the Vajpayee government quickly realized that if normal relations with China were desirable; then amends would have to be made to mollify the Chinese.
* In October 1998, the PM’s office made a public statement that India did not see China as an enemy. Nor did India wish to enter into an arms race with China. President Narayanan also spoke to the Chinese Ambassador in Delhi on the same lines.
*During his visit to China 15-17 June 1999, the then EAM Jaswant Singh publicly stated that the Indian government ‘does not think that China is a threat’.
* Having mollified the Chinese it was on this basis that they finally agreed to move bilateral relations forward that eventually led to PM Vajpayee’s historic visit to China in 2003.

China's "little blue" men in the South China Sea

      According to a Pentagon report China's fishing fleet in the East and South China Seas consists of nearly 21million fishermen and about 439,000 motor boats. They are based mostly on Hainan island as also in ports along the South China sea coast.
* Inserted on fishing boats are members of the Chinese naval militia, popularly known as the "little blue men". Many veteran Chinese naval personnel are serving as militiamen, disguised as fishermen. Such vessels are now regularly deployed in the South China Sea area.
* By using ostensibly civilian personnel and fishing boats, the Chinese are well placed to avoid direct military to military confrontations. In addition, the element of deniability is always available to the Chinese should any incident take place.
* US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for East Asia, Abraham Denmark in a report says that Chinese vessels attempt to establish a degree of control around disputed features in the SCS area and at the same time stay well below the threshold of conflict, but also do assert their claims.
* These Chinese tactics are designed to exploit the "grey zones" that exist in the US Navy's rules of engagement. US Navy rules are silent on how to handle such activity.
* For example: When USS Larsen passed close to an artificially created island on Subi Reef near the Spratly islands on a 'FoN' operation, Chinese Naval Destroyers stayed well away at a safe distance. However small Chinese fishing vessels were deliberately provocative, harassing the USS Larsen by crossing its bow and maneuvering around it. The US Navy had no plausible response ready.
* Chinese authorities are clearly miffed on reports of such activity. Yang Yujun, spokesman of the Chinese Ministry of Defence said "such reports wantonly distort China's national defence policy and the legal activities in the East and South East China Sea areas [emphasis added]"