China does not threaten India
Former Prime Minister of India Inder Kumar Gujral was late with his criticism of the Indian nuclear tests. But when he did, he blew a hole in the theory being proffered that it was the Chinese threat that forced India to take the extreme step. "[Playing the] China card is wrong and undiplomatic," said Gujral emphatically.
It is time India's politicians realised that their country has, for long, ceased to matter in China's defence plans. Going back some decades, while it is true that the 1962 war left India with psychic scars, for China it was but a border skirmish, now nearly forgotten. Chinese military officers today say that for decades they have not done any contingency planning for a war with India. Even if they ever did, it is unlikely that nuclear weapons would have figured in those plans, since these weapons are of little use in border wars with limited aims.
At a meeting of American, Chinese, European and Russian nuclear scientists in Sichuan in 1996, none of the Chinese scientists thought India figured in Beijing's nuclear policy. Interestingly, at the meeting (held jointly with the Ninth Academy – China's equivalent to Los Alamos, the American nuclear facility), a participant from China's Institute of Systems Engineering came up with a revelation: China's last project to develop a medium-range ballistic missile – the DF-25 – stood cancelled for lack of funds. (The 1700-km-range missile is similar in many ways to India's Agni, and was meant to have been deployed on the Tibetan plateau.)
Given China's booming economy, that explanation was disingenuous, to be sure. According to a report by Eric Arnett for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the real explanation probably lay in Beijing's lack of military interest in India. Arnett also noted that the DF-3A, the missile that the DF-25 would have replaced, is obsolete, and no other Chinese missile can reach major targets in India – the M-9 and M-11 would fall short of most Indian targets even if based in Tibet, and the strategic missiles would all overshoot.
Furthermore, the Defence Agency of Japan reveals that China's nuclear bomber force stands de-activated after years of neglect. This has left the Xian Aircraft Corporation, China's only producer of bombers, on the verge of bankruptcy.
All these are not indications of a sudden policy shift in Beijing, but rather a potent reminder of a change begun more than 10 years ago. The inescapable inference is that, as far as India is concerned, China should not be the basis of its military planning or its arms-control policy.
A question of priorities
It is also important to note Beijing's nuclear-related assistance to New Delhi. According to data from SIPRI, China, sans any safeguards, supplied India with 130-150 metric tons of heavy water (D2O) between 1982-1987. (Please refer to varying information on page 32. Editors.) It also supplied, under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, low-enriched uranium (LEU) in 1995 for India's Tarapur reactor.
As for China's active missile programme, it does have a good-sized arsenal of ballistic missiles, with several more being developed. Ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons were the highest priorities of the Chinese Government in the first four decades of its post-war incarnation. In 1971, Beijing deployed the DF-3A, its first missile capable of striking India. But even then India was not the target; US bases in the Philippines were.
Until 1985, Chinese engineers had concentrated on increasing the range and performance of their missiles in the context of a war with Russia or the United States. In 1985, however, Deng Xiaoping gained approval for a military reform programme on the assumption that China would not enter a major war for several decades.
With the implementation of military, economic as well as scientific reforms which changed the way Chinese military production units do business, a number of state enterprises began developing short-range missiles independently to keep themselves afloat. The new missiles, comparable to India's Prithvi, but more advanced, were meant for the international market. Three of these are now known as the M-7, the M-9 and the M-11 and may have been sold – wholly or in component parts – to Iran, Pakistan and Syria. They were also offered to India.
All the while, however, Beijing's highest priority has been to ensure the ability of these newly-developed missiles to strike western Russia or the United States, in order to survive a pre-emptive attack. China's modernisation programme is regarded by many observers as an "insurance policy". In that sense, other nuclear weapon states have also sought insurance, and India's nuclear option was maintained for much the same purpose. But again, in this context, India had no reason to fear a Chinese nuclear threat as Beijing had totally different priorities.
As for the worsening ties between India and Pakistan, especially so in the aftermath of the nuclear tests, China would obviously want the problem to drag on in its own interest. For while it is true that India does not figure prominently in China's military planning, China would never want to see India achieving "big power" status to rival its own.