China expects India to sign NPT at the earliest

BEIJING: China called on countries that have not yet joined the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) to join as non-nuclear weapon states as soon as possible.

China’s Foreign Ministry said this in response to questions on India’s application to the NPT treaty.

The comment was given by Geng Shuang spokesperson of China’s Foreign Ministry at a regular news briefing when asked if the meeting of five nuclear weapon states talked about the possibility of India joining the NPT and Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

There has not been a precedent for a non-NPT country to join the Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG), so, if India wants to join the NSG, it requires sufficient negotiation among NSG members and a consensus among them to reach a resolution to the issue said Geng.

The NSG was set up by a group of countries that have civil nuclear technology equipment and material export capabilities. It aims to achieve nuclear non-proliferation by preventing civil nuclear technology and material from being used to develop nuclear weapons.

Xu Guangyu a senior consultant at the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association and a participant of open activities at the P5 Conference told Chinese media that it is impossible for China as well as the other four recognised nuclear weapon countries in the NPT to recognise a new nuclear weapon country because this would cause serious nuclear proliferation and global security would be greatly damaged.

Many more countries would like to become nuclear armed states if the five do not safeguard the standard and norm of joining the NPT Xu said.

Four states—India, Israel, Pakistan and South Sudan— have never signed the NPT. India and Pakistan have publicly disclosed their nuclear weapons programmes and Israel has a long standing policy of deliberate ambiguity with regards to its nuclear programme.