China urges for balance in India nuclear deal
China urged caution in any deal supplying India with nuclear fuel and technology, saying on Tuesday the peaceful use of nuclear energy had to be balanced against concerns about weapons development.
By Agencies |
BEIJING : China urged caution in any deal supplying India with nuclear fuel and technology, saying on Tuesday the peaceful use of nuclear energy had to be balanced against concerns about weapons development.
The comments by Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu at a regular news conference came ahead of talks in Vienna on Thursday and Friday on a deal that will allow the United States and other nations to supply India with nuclear material and technology for civilian use.
``China hopes the NSG (the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group) can find a way to strike a balance between nuclear nonproliferation and peaceful use of energy,'' Jiang said.
The group bans nuclear exports to countries such as India that have atomic weapons and have refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The Vienna talks this week are expected to focus on amendments to a U.S.-proposed draft statement that would allow India access to other nations' nuclear fuel and technology.
Some members of the group are eager to open nuclear trade links with India and appear to back the U.S. argument that the waiver would bring the South Asian country into the nonproliferation mainstream. Others are concerned it could set a dangerous precedent.
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The group's approval of an Indian waiver is essential for the finalizing of a separate civil nuclear cooperation pact between New Delhi and Washington. The pact, which still must be approved by the U.S. Congress, would reverse more than three decades of US policy by allowing the sale of nuclear materials to a country that has tested nuclear weapons but has refused to sign nonproliferation treaties. Jiang's comments were softer than an editorial Monday in the People's Daily newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, which said the US-India nuclear agreement posed a ``major blow'' to international nonproliferation.
``Whatever the future of the U.S.-India nuclear agreement, the multiple standard that the U.S. has on the issue of nonproliferation has caused doubts in the world,'' it said.
Jiang said Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi will visit India and Sri Lanka starting Monday, but did not say if the nuclear issue would be discussed.
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Although relations between India and China have improved in recent years, tensions remain due to sharpening economic rivalries, lingering arguments about their shared border and unrest in Tibet, the Chinese-controlled Himalayan region on the Indian frontier. The neighbors fought a brief but bloody border war in 1962 and remain in dispute over the ownership of large chunks of mountainous territory.
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