India's membership in the NSG is symbolic; Lack of success does it no harm

Symbolic entry?

The quest for Indian membership into the NSG is thus more symbolic than anything else. Indian membership into export control regimes like the NSG, MTCR, the Wassenaar Arrangement, and the Australia Group, is aimed at increasing India's legitimacy in the nuclear order as a Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) state. A step towards this has already been taken, with Italy removing its opposition to Indian membership, to the MTCR (a prudent exchange in lieu of India easing up on its marines implicated in the Enrica Lexie case).

The NSG, however, is a different ball game altogether. Membership to the NSG would remove any doubt as to the legitimacy of India in the nuclear order and greatly improve its standing. This is, thus a question of status, more than of efficiency in trade.

Chinese opposition

Membership into the NSG would also help India dehyphenate itself from Pakistan permanently in the nuclear realm. It is no wonder hence, that China's opposition to India's membership has rested on the condition that Pakistan be included in the regime as well. China knows this is not a realistic demand. However, for the time, it will be enough to thwart India's membership bid.

The more legitimate problem that the Chinese point to, is that every case dealing with India has been 'ad-hoc' in nature, and strongly dependent on the exceptionalism of Indian nuclear behaviour. The former, points to the need for a 'rules based' approach to the international order, which in the absence of an institutional mechanism for India's membership to the NSG, is a problematic issue for the latter to deal with. In 2008, China was the main opposition to India's waiver in the NSG, citing the same reasons.

That the Chinese would oppose Indian membership this time around on similar grounds was a well known fact. To that extent, it was quite imprudent on the countries behalf to have sought to isolate China, and allowed it to couple India and Pakistan thus leading to a formidable challenge. It would have served India better to have done business with the Chinese, and leveraged their partnerships in the BRICS and other regional alliances like the SCO.

India and China at loggerheads

To be sure, if India and China are at loggerheads with each other on the NSG membership issue, this rivalry is bound to spill over to other multilateral fora as well.

India's wholehearted embrace of the US' defence partnership and support, has every reason to have the Chinese suspicious of Indian aspirations, in international regimes. The onus was on the latter to allay these misgivings, not accentuate them.

While the cost of this is that India's membership to the NSG will not happen this year, some are still hopeful that like in 2008, the US can step in and singlehandedly push India through. This is unlikely to happen, as India and the US has diplomatically isolated China far too much, this time around. More moderated positions on the South China Sea, and less targeted joint military exercises would have gone a long way in ensuring that.

The positive news out of all of this is that, regardless of Indian membership in the NSG, its nuclear trade has no imminent barriers from the group, and can continue unabated, as it seeks greater legitimacy in the international nuclear order.

Edited by Sahil Bhalla