China frets over nuclear 'double
standard' By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - With the dispute over Iran's
controversial nuclear program moving this week to
the United Nations Security Council, the stage is
set for a perilous confrontation between the
Islamic Republic and the international community -
a showdown that not only Tehran but also world
powers China and Russia have fought to avoid.
While reporting Tehran to the Security
Council is being executed in the name of
preventing nuclear proliferation, China has voiced
fears that the whole non-proliferation system has
been destabilized by the freshly inked nuclear
deal between the United
States and India.
"The United States' making an exception to
accommodate India, driven by geopolitical
considerations, has sent repercussions through the
international non-proliferation infrastructure,"
Hu Shisheng, a fellow of South Asian Studies at
the China Institute of Contemporary International
Relations, wrote in the China Daily of March 7.
"The double standards will very likely
complicate the nuclear issues of Iran and the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea all the
more," he argued. "Now the international community
is presented with a big question: How can the
effectiveness and binding power of the
non-proliferation system be guaranteed?"
The official line from Beijing on the
nuclear-cooperation agreement signed last week
between Washington and New Delhi has been more
restrained, but the Chinese Foreign Ministry has
questioned the gains for global
nuclear-non-proliferation efforts.
Foreign
Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the deal came at
a time when the international community was
working to enhance the authority and effectiveness
of the international non-proliferation regime.
Nuclear cooperation between the United States and
India must conform to the rules of the global
non-proliferation regime, he emphasized.
Speaking of the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT), Qin Gang said: "As a signatory
country, China hopes non-signatory countries will
join it as soon as possible as non-nuclear-weapons
states, thereby contributing to strengthening the
international non-proliferation regime."
The remark was clearly aimed at New Delhi,
which without signing the NPT has now been given
the rights enjoyed by the members of the Nuclear
Suppliers Group, and also the five nuclear powers.
Under the deal sealed between US President
George W Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh in New Delhi, India retained the right to
deny UN inspectors access to its fast-breeder
reactors capable of producing weapons-grade
fissile material.
As India didn't agree to
cap its production, it means there could be
unlimited expansion of its nuclear arsenal,
sparking fears this could lead to a new regional
arms race.
Critics of the deal have
charged the US with gambling away its chances of
success in the global campaign to limit the spread
of nuclear weapons for the questionable benefit of
counterbalancing China.
It was a point
emphasized this week in an editorial in the
Chinese Communist Party's flagship publication,
the People's Daily. "The United States, accustomed
to view problems with Cold War mentality and from
the perspective of geopolitics," said the
editorial, "saw the power of India'' as being able
to ''help it achieve balance among powers in
Asia.''
The paper went on to warn that
there could be consequences for the "two
deadlocked nuclear talks [with Iran and North
Korea] and the non-proliferation system".
Over the past two years China has been
trying to prevent both its allies Iran and North
Korea from being referred to the Security Council
but has found it increasingly difficult as all
major world powers from France to Japan had
started thinking aloud about the consequences of
allowing Iran to build a nuclear weapon.
Although China has huge oil stakes in the
Middle Eastern country, in recent months Beijing
has sided with the US and Europe in their combined
efforts to curtail Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Chinese Foreign Ministry officials have called
on Tehran to observe all obligations that go with
the NPT so that the crisis can be resolved without
moving it to the Security Council. China, which
has veto power in the council, would be forced to
make an uncomfortable choice between its
international standing and economic interests
should developments lead to a vote on sanctions
against Tehran.
Agreeing to UN sanctions
would potentially destroy the value of many
investments Beijing has made. In Iran, where US
companies are prohibited from investing more than
US$20 million annually, Chinese companies have
signed long-term contracts totaling $200 billion,
making China Iran's biggest oil and gas customer.
But encouragement of Tehran in its
controversial nuclear program would make China
appear an outcast in the eyes of the White House,
and the international community.
Hoping to
avoid clear-cut choices, Beijing has argued
vigorously that continued negotiations are the
best, if not the only, way to resolve the nuclear
dispute in Iran, as well as the one involving
North Korea.
A similar appeal came just
hours before the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) ended its meeting on the Iranian
nuclear program in Vienna, sending the file to the
UN Security Council in New York.
"The
Iranian nuclear issue is at a critical juncture,"
Zhang Yan, director of the arms control department
of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, told the IAEA
board members. There exists both a risk of
deterioration and chances of improvement, he said.
"The key is whether all concerned parties
choose dialogue instead of confrontation. China
believes that the continuation of the diplomatic
efforts remains the wise option for the solution
of the Iranian nuclear issue," Zhang concluded.
