India’s Tests Alter Equation of China Summit

Suddenly, it’s China’s turn to feel needed.

Thanks to India’s surprise nuclear tests last week, the geopolitical axis has twisted overnight, putting China in a diplomatic position similar to the critical one it enjoyed and exploited during the Cold War.

As a result, President Clinton’s upcoming visit to Beijing--which seemed destined to be a minefield of political sensitivities about Tibet and human rights--will take on a very different tone: The Americans will arrive with a list of pleas for China’s help.

Human rights will likely move down on the agenda of this U.S.-China summit, haunted by the specter of nuclear Armageddon.

For starters, the United States will ask China, which two years ago promised to halt nuclear tests and join the nonproliferation club, to refrain from restarting its testing program at the desert post of Lop Nor in the Xinjiang region, despite what is viewed here as India’s blatant provocation. Beijing has not signaled that it will resume the tests, but China and India fought a brief border war in 1962 and still have unresolved disputes.

Second, the Americans will need China to control Pakistan, one of Beijing’s oldest and dearest allies. Having possibly supplied Pakistan with the rudiments of a nuclear weapons program, China now needs to ask the Pakistani leadership not to use them.

Finally, there is the question of North Korea, a truly unstable and unpredictable country that has historically been a Beijing ally.

Not to be outdone by India, the North Korean regime, through its ambassador in Beijing, threatened last week to reopen the nuclear power facility it closed under international pressure in 1994 amid accusations that the plant was being used to produce fissionable nuclear materials.

Once again, Beijing will be asked to monitor and rein in the North Korean leadership to avoid a nuclear arms race in both northern and southern Asia.

This process probably already has begun, with the Chinese joining the club of nations privately begging Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif not to retaliate for the Indian testing. However, in the event that Pakistan explodes its own test bomb, China has an even more critical role to play, as an intermediary to halt the nuclear escalation.

The outside world might have been shocked by the widespread joy in India--the land of Mohandas K. Gandhi and the philosophy of nonviolence--over the announcement of the nuclear tests. It is natural to be bewildered by people rejoicing over what conceivably could be the first step in their own annihilation.

But you can be sure the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was not surprised.

Although it heads India’s coalition government, the BJP has a problem. Its main strength is in the populous Gangetic plain of northern India--where it is identified as a Hindu nationalist party, bulwark against the country’s 200 million Muslims and southern Indians who do not speak Hindi.

The BJP has never been the truly national party that the Congress Party, ruler of India for most of the years since independence in 1947, has always been, even in its current weakened state. Often forgotten, however, is that one of the main ways the Congress Party expanded its reach was by tapping the nationalist fervor roused by India’s three wars with Pakistan.

This latest surge of national pride--similar to emotions engendered by a one-sided Indian victory over Pakistan on the cricket pitch--was precisely what BJP leader and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, always one of the canniest of Indian political personalities, was counting on. After the nuclear tests, in fact, look for the BJP to broaden its political base, particularly in southern India.

Of course, the downside of the narrow gains by a single Indian political party is that the kind of fervent, irrational nationalism now in evidence in India exists in an even more virulent form in Pakistan. Pakistan is India without the tradition of ahimsa, the nonviolence advocated by Gandhi. In Pakistan, the truck drivers adorn their vehicles with paintings of F-16 fighters sold to Pakistan by the United States.

Moreover, Pakistan has lost--or at best tied--its three conflicts with India. Because of India, the pressures on Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif are immense. If Pakistan is capable, as it has long claimed, it is very likely to test some type of nuclear device.

This is where China comes into play. Now that the nightmare scenario has begun to develop--two potentially unstable Third World countries engaging in a game of nuclear one-upmanship--keeping Pakistan from retaliating is no longer the most important goal.

The real challenge will come after the Pakistan riposte. Can the two neighbors, whose capitals are only an hour away by air and who share rivers and culture going back thousands of years, avoid another level of escalation?

China, as Pakistan’s steadiest ally and India’s most fearsome foe, will play a key role in these events. So far, Beijing has been restrained in its response to the Indian tests.

On Thursday, the official New China News Agency produced an unusual story stating that “China and the United States consider India’s nuclear tests unacceptable for the international community.” It detailed a phone call that Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan made to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to discuss the issue on Wednesday.

Coverage of the Indian tests built slowly last week in the Chinese media. On Thursday, China Central Television broadcasted a report featuring interviews with experts in Washington and Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, as well as Beijing. Friday’s People’s Daily editorial harshly condemned the tests.

China could go in several directions. First, and most unlikely, it could face off against India and join Pakistan in some kind of defense pact. This is a possibility that India, despite its recent nuclear strutting, would like least.

Another possibility is that China would assume the role of regional godfather, attempting to calm the situation and restore balance. This is the role that the United States probably would like best.

If all this sounds vaguely familiar, it is. After it broke with the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, China played a similar role during the Cold War. China was the wedge that the Americans needed against the mutually perceived Soviet threat. Now, in the wake of the Indian tests, China is once again a key player in maintaining parity.

In this respect, there is a highly ironic aspect of the Indian nuclear play. Two months ago, Sujit Dutta, a young Indian strategic analyst, arrived in Beijing on a visit sponsored by the U.S. Institute for Peace in Washington. Dutta, who is affiliated with the Institute of Defense Studies in New Delhi, said there was a general impression in his country that the United States is ignoring India and devoting most of its attention to China.

Now that India has played its nuclear card, it certainly has attracted the attention of the United States--of the whole world, in fact.

The irony, however, is that if any country benefits from this scary episode, it will likely be China.