Author: M K Dhar
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: December 7, 2000
Washington assumes too
much by asserting that China will honour its commitment not to supply nuclear
capable missiles or components in future. China is committed now
to further improve and reinforce its export control system covering ban
on dual use items under its missile non-proliferation policy.
It is after years of
protests by India against transfer of nuclear capable missiles by Beijing
to Islamabad, that the US has finally waived all sanctions in exchange
for assurances of good behaviour in future. State Department spokesman
Richard Boucher wants India to welcome the comprehensive and explicit assurance
from China that no such cooperation with Pakistan will take place in future.
The assurance came on
the eve of the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Conference, presumably as trade-off
by promising not to continue as a missile proliferator, in order to frustrate
the US Theatre Missile Defence System (TDM) proposed for Asia-Pacific for
China's strategic encirclement. India has little interest in deals
between two nuclear powers, but China's participation in Pakistan's emergence
as a nuclear and missile power in the region has endangered India's security.
Washington's attempt to whitewash the guilt does not certainly please India,
which is being sermonised to close its missile options.
China has enabled Pakistan
to reach a stage technologically where it can manufacture its own ballistic
missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads to "all Indian cities".
A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Islamabad confirmed this while stating
that China's assurances to the US would not affect Pakistan's indigenous
missile programme since it was already in possession of minimum nuclear
deference based on missiles and aircraft. Pakistan's entire programme
is Chinese-driven and Beijing has never been looking for commercial gains
in such transactions made at special "friendship prices" but in the interest
of strategic partnership against India. Otherwise, such massive arms
and nuclear materials transfers, Beijing's denials notwithstanding, makes
little sense.
China has never admitted
its collaboration with Pakistan in the strategic area, increasing Islamabad's
belligerence and lawless behaviour towards India. There has been
a profusion of denials about supply of fissile materials, uranium enrichment
plant components, weapon designs and related technology, plutonium processing
facility, and missile supply in violation of its commitments as a NPT signatory.
Going by past experience, denials will continue to be made as expected
of the ongoing Sino-Pak collaboration.
For strategic reasons,
Washington has resolutely turned a blind eye to irrefutable findings by
intelligence agencies about the transfer of nuclear components and M-11
and other missiles from China to Pakistan. As a consequence, frustrated
intelligence officers have begun to leak information to the US media, forcing
the administration to react. As Gary Milholin of the Nuclear Arms
Control Centre points out, the intelligence agencies are "tired of sending
over all the information and having it ignored by the US Administration.
They would like to think that the work they do has some kind of impact".
Even a Congressional Commission on Missile Tests confirmed that Pakistan's
missile infrastructure "has developed quite rapidly with technical help
from China and North Korea". From where North Korea acquired such
capability is also a question for Washington to answer. It is well-known
that China has set up a ballistic missile production plant in Kala Chata
mountain range near Fatejung, 40 km from Islamabad, called the National
Defence Complex. Islamabad still officially denies the existence
of any such factory and Beijing, as usual, denies any collaboration.
Pakistan has also acquired some fully assembled missiles from North Korea.
Pakistan could not have
acquired so much enriched uranium as to build 50 to 60 nuclear weapons
without active help from China and without stealing technology from the
Netherlands and Germany. Apart from supply of ring magnets and other
components for its Kahuta uranium enrichment plant, China has set up the
300 mw Chashma uranium enrichment plant. The supplies include stabilisers
and streamers and also large quantities of heavy water.
Pakistan is now taking
two routes to the nuclear weapons programme, one based on uranium and the
other on plutonium. The facility for extracting fissile material
from the Chashma plant exists on the left bank of the Indus river, 170
km from Islamabad in Mianwali district. The Clinton Administration's
efforts to dissuade China and other countries from getting involved in
the Khushab project did not succeed. For quite some time the existence
of the plant was denied. But former premier Benazir Bhutto candidly
admitted later that the Khushab project was "tied to our nuclear plant
from China".
In spite of the fact
that Pakistan remains steadfast in its commitment to support terrorist
Osama bin Laden, who is mounting Islamist expeditions to China's Xinjiang
province also Beijing is strong in its commitment to Islambad, a "special
friend". The argument that China needs a long period of peace for
its economic development does not match its action on the ground, of increasing
tension in the subcontinent.
