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Nuclear blasts shake China out of its splendid isolation

India and Pakistan's nuclear-charged tensions shocked China, pushing it to steer a shaky course between helping staunch ally Islamabad and making rare appeals for international action.

Decisions made in the wake of India's explosive arrival as a nuclear power this month mark a tentative step in China's nascent effort to emerge as a responsible global partner. But they also show China is not ready to forego its go-it-alone foreign policy for the unknown rewards of internationalism.

"There is a debate going on in China on that very question. It has yet to be settled,'' said Ronald Montaperto, an expert on Chinese security issues at the National Defense University.

Handling India's nuclear challenge and containing the Indian-Pakistani rivalry it has fuelled, carry high stakes for China, the region's sole nuclear power until the Indian tests. A nuclear arms race on its south-western flank could sidetrack pursuit of economic development, China's top priority.

Distrust, however, reigns on all sides. A decade of fitfully improving ties has failed to bury suspicions from China and India's border war in 1962. Beijing has supported Pakistan, purportedly supplying Islamabad's suspected nuclear and missile programmes, to check New Delhi's ambitions.

"I don't think India will use the nuclear bomb against China, but I do think they may use it against Pakistan,'' said Yan Xuetong, a foreign policy expert with a think-tank connected to the state security ministry, China's spy agency. "If there is a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan, China will naturally be dragged into it.''

Yan said India's nuclear tests rattled through Beijing's normally lumbering foreign policy establishment like an atomic shock wave.

In a matter of days, policy advisers and makers were forced to reappraise the decades-old alliance with Pakistan, a 10-year effort to better Indian relations and recent treaty commitments to combat nuclear proliferation and not to test nuclear warheads.

Internationalists, academics and foreign ministry experts mostly saw the Indian challenge as an opportunity. In their favour, China made a rare appeal for unified worldwide pressure on India to abandon its nuclear programme. Beijing did not threaten to resume the nuclear testing it halted two years ago to join a global ban.

Cornerstones of Beijing's more isolationist foreign policy strongly supported by the military were left untouched. That means no sanctions against India, like the ones being imposed by the United States, and no guaranteed nuclear umbrella for Pakistan.

Beijing resisted sanctions throughout its 33 years of nuclear testing and has been targeted in the past by perceived hostile alliances. It won't set a precedent, even for India.

"India in one step served notice on the international community that it was a nuclear power. It is a fact,'' said Liu Jinghua of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "Sanctions will only sharpen national sentiments and have no effect on India's nuclear policy.''

China, however, is not abandoning Pakistan. Pakistani foreign secretary Shamshad Ahmed, dispatched to Beijing after the Indian tests, said he received assurances China would not punish Pakistan if it staged its own nuclear test. Such support would be crucial to weather expected sanctions and condemnation from other countries.

"The Indians well know that the Chinese will provide Pakistan with whatever it needs,'' said Montaperto, the Chinese security issues expert.

Beijing has warned Delhi it will scrap its policy to improve ties if Indian leaders keep demonising China as the region's real threat. A foreign ministry statement accused India of playing the nuclear card to seek dominance, or "hegemony,'' in South Asia -- a word China reserves for enemy countries.

Chinese policy makers are watching India's governing coalition closely to judge intentions. Defence Minister George Fernandes, seen by Beijing as an anti-China hardliner, said over the weekend the tests should not stop the countries from building ties.

Yan, the Chinese foreign policy expert, believes the situation won't easily be defused. For him, the tests prove the lengths Indian leaders are willing to go to shore up public support.

"The tests show they do not care about the economy, they do not care about isolation, they only care about power,'' said Yan.

UNI

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