NEW DELHI: After the first round of talks between India and China on the NSG+ , both countries may hold a second set of discussions in October in Beijing.
The talks, between Wang Qun and Amandeep Gill, which for the first time saw India and China+ engaging each other on such an important issue, ended with China agreeing to engage with the consensus building process by Argentinian diplomatRafael Grossi.
China’s foreign ministry put out a statement later that it would support a “two-step” process – “at the first stage, to explore and reach agreement on a non-discriminatory formula applicable to all the non-NPT states, and to proceed to take up country-specific membership issues at the second stage. China, for its part, expressed its readiness to actively participate in the above process within the Group.”
On Wednesday, China reiterated that it had not supported any specific country’s membership issue. “China is yet to form a position on the accession of any specific non-NPT country. But we are willing to have discussions with NSG members on the accession of non-NPT countries.”
But this “two-step” process is already under way – the NSG itself has started the process of consultations among countries who wanted a clearer process for induction of non-NPT countries into NSG. China is taking a more leisurely approach to this, as opposed to the US which wants the process to be completed before theObama administration steps down.
The India-China talks came about because, while the NSG process is a multilateral one, as pointed out by China, it is also a bilateral exercise. Particularly with major countries like China, multilateral issues like NSG membership have a strong bilateral dimension.
In its own inputs to the ongoing NSG consultation process, India has argued NSG was not a treaty implementation body, but a group of nuclear suppliers keen on ensuring that their stuff does not fall into the wrong hands.
India says the focus within NSG has been on the “implementation” of NPT. So, for a non-NPT country, that would mean checking off some markers or criteria – whether it complies with the provisions of NPT, particularly Articles I, III(2), IV and VI, and if it is reflected in policy commitments and domestic legislation; whether it abides by NPT rules in a safeguards agreement with the IAEA. The state in question, India says, should have a record of non-proliferation and disarmament that is in adherence to the NPT. As an adherent, regardless of its non-signatory status, India argues it has a better case.