“Chinese President Hu Jintau is expected to announce a nuclear cooperation deal with Pakistan, in order to mollify the pique that its client state feels over the U.S.-India deal.”

By Chidanand Rajghatta

November 17, 2006
India - Times of India - Original Article (English)    

President Bush and Indian leader Manmohan
Singh in New Dehli in March. The deal they
agreed to is nearing official passage in the
United States, but the controversy over the
wisdom of it goes on.







Pakistan test fired a nuclear-capable ballistic
missile, a day after concluding peace talks with
India where the rivals agreed to new atomic
safety measures. In this handout from Pakistan,
military official are seen with the missile before
it was fired.

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WASHINGTON: For some it's a strategic leap; for others it's an environmental bailout; for still others, it just makes plain business sense.

As the landmark U.S.-India nuclear deal cleared a major hurdle in the Senate, different constituencies looked at its progress from their own points of view, with only the two governments and a few far-sighted lawmakers seeing the deal in its totality.

The strategic community mulled over the consequences of the tacit acknowledgment of the U.S. and its lawmakers of India's status as a nuclear weapons power, and the immediate fallout from Chinese President Hu Jintao's upcoming visit to the subcontinent, first to India and then to Pakistan.

Hu is expected to announce a nuclear cooperation deal with Pakistan, in order to mollify the pique that its client state feels over the U.S.-India deal. It is also expected to strengthen its ties with Islamabad - a relationship often described as "close as lips and teeth." Whether that deal will have any substance - considering China's own nuclear program is dependant on Western input - is something analysts are uncertain of.

Then there's the "fungibility" argument and the matter of India's nuclear arsenal, which has exercised many experts on nonproliferation, who have opposed the U.S.-India deal. According to them, an American supply of nuclear fuel to India would enable New Delhi to divert its own scarce nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants to nuclear weaponry. "It will result in India going from making seven bombs a year to 40 bombs a year," says Congressman Ed Markey, the chief articulator of the fungibility theory.

Experts that favor the deal disparage this theory, saying that such an argument should preclude any ties with India - including trade and aid - since theoretically any help from Washington could free up Indian resources for military purposes.

But the most powerful counter to the fungibility argument is that India, by its own volition or inability, has kept both the pace and size of its nuclear arsenal to modest levels.

Then there's the energy and environment constituency, which is delighted about the deal because it could result in weaning India away from excessive dependence on fossil fuels, while at the same time helping to contain global warming – which is creating havoc in the planet's climate patterns.

Quite strikingly, two Democratic Senators from North Dakota tried to hold up passage of the deal on Wednesday by arguing for relief to farmers in Montana who were victims of floods and drought. The two never made the connection between the plight of their constituents, the global energy crisis and its effects on climate change.

Then there is the business community, which expects the nuclear deal to unlock commercial opportunities, even as it accomplishes other objectives.

"India's nuclear energy market, estimated to require $100 billion in foreign direct investment, will open for U.S. companies, which until now have been a closed out of the sector, creates the potential for 270,000 American jobs in high technology engineering and manufacturing over the next decade," exulted Ron Somers, President of the U.S.-India Business Council.

Critics question such optimism, pointing out that after a similar U.S.-China nuclear deal, the United States hasn't managed to sell a single nuclear reactor to Beijing, with the biggest deals having been snagged by non-U.S. companies.