/REPEATING/POLITICS-INDIA: Missile Launch to Test Warming Ties with China

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Jan 19 2001 (IPS) - India’s test launch of the long-range Agni-II missile, which can carry a nuclear warhead, has again raised tensions with arch-foe Pakistan and worried the big powers, but New Delhi insists that no one can impose “restraint” on it.

Even as Defence Minister George Fernandes asserted this, foreign policy analysts were commenting on the timing of the Wednesday test launch.

Carried out while senior Chinese leader Li Peng was winding up a trip to India — the first by a top Chinese leader since India’s May 1998 nuclear tests strained New Delhi-Beijing ties — the successful Agni test is said to have finally given India a “credible nuclear deterrent”.

According to a government announcement, the launch tested the missile’s “final operational configuration” — a technical term meaning it is now ready for mass production. The Agni-II can carry a one-tonne warhead over a distance of more than 2,000 km.

Indian officials here were careful to say that the test was not intended as a message to Pakistan, but Islamabad saw a “direct threat”.

“India’s nuclear ambitions, clear from its draft nuclear doctrine announced in 1999, have a destabilising effect on the region,” an official statement released in Islamabad said.

Defence analysts expect Pakistan to answer with a similar missile test. Islamabad replied to India’s 1998 nuclear tests with its own nuclear blasts. When the Agni-II was first test-fired in April 1999, Islamabad tested its Ghauri-II — a nuclear-capable missile with a 1,500 km range.

However, many see the Agni test as directed more against China. Immediately before its nuclear tests two years ago, defence minister Fernandes had described China as a “potential threat number one.”

After the nuclear tests, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee explained in a letter to U.S. President Bill Clinton, that the tests had to do with a “neighbour in the north” with whom India had fought a “bitter war.”

“It would be ironic if a test aimed at influencing Chinese opinion ended up influencing Pakistani opinion,” Stephen Cohen, expert on South Asian security issues at the U.S.-based Brooking Institute, was quoted as saying.

One of New Delhi’s complaint against Beijing has been China’s alleged transfer of missile and nuclear weapons know-how to Pakistan.

The Agni-II test is also said to signal New Delhi’s determination to defy Western pressure.

“We don’t need to be told by anybody about restraint — no one can put pressure on us,” the defence minister told a news conference shortly after the Wednesday launch.

When the Agni-II was first test fired two years ago, Vajpayee said India was determined to develop its own indigenous capabilities and described the missile as a “symbol of resurgent India.”

However, as India under Vajpyee, also vigorously pursued a path of rapid globalisation, the West slowly began withdrawing many of the sanctions on technology transfers imposed after the May 1998 nuclear tests.

In mid-January, the U.S. Ambassador to India, Richard Celeste described the sanctions as a “mistake”. He expressed the hope that his government would soon completely lift the sanctions, which prevented India’s leading nuclear scientist, R. Chidambaram from attending a conference in the United States.

The U.S. has also lifted restrictions on the sale of high speed computers to India, imposed after India’s first nuclear test in May 1974. Washington argued that the restriction had been ineffective with Indian government scientists developing ‘supercomputers’ on their own.

Russia, a close friend from the Cold War days, refused to go along with the Western sanctions. Russian Minister for Atomic Energy, Yevgeny Adamov has denounced the nuclear technology boycott on India as “unconstructive.”

As a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), Russia cannot give nuclear technology to India because of New Delhi’s refusal to open its nuclear programmes to international inspection, but Moscow has continued to supply nuclear reactors and technology to New Delhi.

When Russian President Vladmir Putin visited India last year, the two countries signed a secret nuclear cooperation agreement. Russia has also continued to supply rocket technology to India, including know-how for advanced cryogenic engines, despite Washington’s objections.

Earlier in January, Australia — one of the fiercest critics of the Indian nuclear tests — said it would restore defence ties with India, snapped after the May 1998 nuclear tests.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer was quoted as saying Thursday that the Agni-II test would not affect Australia’s decision to restore defence ties with India.

Compared to the international uproar against the May 1998 nuclear tests, Western criticism of the Agni-II launch has been muted.

An Indian foreign ministry spokesperson said India had informed all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council about the test. Pakistan, Germany and Japan too were told in advance.

Some here do not expect the Agni test to trigger an arms race in South Asia. “While some reaction from Islamabad is likely — Pakistan may fire off a missile or two procured from China or North Korea — there is no need to be unduly concerned about an arms race,” said the national daily, the ‘Times of India’, in an editorial Thursday.