Sir — This refers to the article, “‘One country’ which has not been nice” (June 30) by Claude Arpi. It is a well-known fact that China has been blocking India’s entry into the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in a bid to appease its all-weather friend Pakistan, on grounds that India has not yet signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
However, this argument seems to be hollow as one of the founding members of NSG, France, has not signed it yet. The main reason behind China’s bid to stymie India’s membership to NSG is that if India enters the group, its chances of being admitted to the Security Council as its sixth permanent member will be easier than ever before.
Moreover, America does not give much weightage to Pakistan, which is evident from the former’s refusal to provide F16 fighter jets to the latter. Pakistan then approached China to counter the US’s suzerainty and China has done the quid-pro-quo by stonewalling India’s bid to gain membership of the NSG as India is much closer to the US now.