India on Thursday upped its ante for becoming a member of the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged China to make a fair and objective assessment of India’s application, and judge it on its own merit. He said China should contribute to the emerging consensus in Seoul,” said Vikas Swarup, Spokesperson, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

Modi met Xi in Tashkent on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit meeting. Both leaders met for about an hour and the NSG issues dominated their meeting.

China has been maintaining that induction of countries that have not signed the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) will be against NSG’s norms. But China has also been openly supporting Pakistan’s membership of the 48-nation club, which controls nuclear commerce and access to sensitive technology.

“It is now up to them (China) to decide what they will do. India is hopeful that a consensus will be built,” a source told BusinessLine .

China did not come out with any official statement after Xi’s meeting with Modi.

Non-NPT nation issue Meanwhile, the first day of NSG’s Plenary Session remained inconclusive. Apart from China, other countries such as Brazil, Austria, New Zealand, Ireland and Turkey opposed India’s entry because of its being a non-NPT signatory.

The final outcome of the NSG meet will be known on Friday.

In a last-minute diplomatic push, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar is in Seoul. He had been to Beijing last week to make India’s case.

Incidentally, the annual meeting of the NSG is also being held at the same time as the SCO. According to sources, India’s membership bid was part of the agenda, contrary to what China had been claiming the past week.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry had said on Wednesday that the idea of “blocking” India is out of the question.“It is true that all parties attach great importance to the entry of non-NPT countries, and the group has had three unofficial discussions on various issues related to the entry of non-NPT countries … China hopes to further discuss this issue and will play a constructive role in the discussions,” Hua Chunying, spokesperson of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had stated.

Earlier this week, Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj had said China is not opposed to India’s entry but has questions on procedures and processes.

The US, the UK, Japan, France, Russia and Mexico have all said they will vote for India at the plenary meeting.

“The NSG membership would be helpful in enabling India strengthen investment for its nuclear power sector and also protect it from any amendment to the waiver, which may not be favourable to India,” said G Balachandran, Consulting Fellow and nuclear technology expert, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.

Related Topics