Subcontinental missiles

PRESIDENT BUSH signed legislation Monday to provide nuclear technology to India, a deal that critics say could do more harm than good to U.S. interests. They’re wrong. It already is complicating U.S. strategy in Asia and elsewhere.

Exhibit A was playing out in Beijing as Bush signed the deal in Washington. As talks opened among China, Japan, Russia, the U.S. and South and North Korea over the North’s nuclear ambitions, North Korean negotiators reiterated their right to build nuclear weapons. The U.S. rightly condemns Kim Jong Il’s withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 2003, yet it overlooks India’s refusal to sign it. It’s hard not to see a double standard at work here -- nuclear weapons are OK for our friends but not for our enemies.

It’s an appealing but simplistic policy, and its perils were evident last month during Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to India and Pakistan. The Chinese leader’s visit was productive for all three countries. But it also hinted at a dangerous future of superpower competition through nuclear trade, endangering both the region and the world.

Hu’s trip focused primarily on trade, key to China’s effort to remain a strong ally of Pakistan and to deepen ties with erstwhile rival India. He also told India that China supports its efforts to gain more power in the United Nations, while he sold Pakistan airborne surveillance systems to counter India’s.

Although Pakistan and China have been allies for decades -- both to counterbalance Indian power and to give China access to Pakistan’s energy-rich neighbors -- China and India have regarded each other warily for much of the last century. The countries fought a border war in 1962 that, combined with Beijing’s nuclear test in 1964, spurred India to develop nuclear weapons. Soldiers remain on the border to this day.

But now, like the U.S., China is asserting its role in South Asia by cozying up to both India and Pakistan. But unlike the U.S., which is pursuing nuclear cooperation with India but not with Pakistan (which has shown itself to be an unreliable steward of nuclear weapons technology), Hu has pledged to give nuclear assistance to both nations. The involvement of the U.S. and China in the subcontinent’s nuclear ambitions can only hinder the peace process India and Pakistan began in 2003.

There’s still a chance that nuclear cooperation won’t accelerate. The U.S.-India deal has some hurdles to overcome, including approval by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers’ Group, which includes China and Japan (where India’s prime minister traveled last week). India also has to formulate safeguards with the International Atomic Energy Agency. China may still not be willing to risk the international disapproval it would incur if it agreed to a major nuclear deal with Pakistan.

The U.S. and China both stand to benefit economically from nuclear trade on the subcontinent. But such trade would undermine the principles of the nonproliferation treaty -- principles that, as U.S. negotiators are no doubt emphasizing in Beijing this week, are vital not only to regional security but to the global effort to combat terrorism.