Arun Shourie
"Why do you keep doing this?", I keep asking. Another press conference has been held, another statement reprimanding Government has been issued, another "massive demonstration" protesting against the Government's "failure to extricate India from the clutches of the WTO" has been announced. The person I have in mind are activists -- like others, they have made a bit of a mark denouncing WTO, the patents Bill, the decision on insurance etc. The difference is that in the public eye the organizations for which they speak, issue statements, announce morchas and the rest, are part of the same parivar as the Government.
"But we must occupy the opposition-space," they say. "The economy is already in great difficulties. It is going to be in an even greater mess soon. If we don't claim this space, the Communists will."
Strange -- at least at first sight. Here, after years of striving and waiting, their parivar has got to form the Government, and they are worried, not about what their actions will do to the prospects of their group continuing to occupy the "Government space", but about its losing the "opposition-space"! People become accustomed to exile! Having spent almost one's entire working life in opposition, that is the only role one knows: hectoring, scolding -- and leaving the doing to others. The group is not comfortable when, suddenly, it has to account for everything that goes wrong. Its members, therefore, gravitate to a behaviour-pattern which will get them back to the role to which they had got accustomed.
Not just exile, failure is as likely as anything else to become a habit! Indeed, in India failure is proof of fidelity! That a person has not succeeded, is taken as proof of his having stuck to principles! If Chance and circumstance propel his group to success, he must work for the second-best: ensure that the group does not say there long!
Definitions somersault. Words acquire the contrary meaning. To you and me, that the activist would have destroyed the Government, would seem a colossal failure. But in his reckoning, he would have succeeded in destroying it! But it is not all principle. There is prudence also. "No Government can do much about India's problems, so intractable are they by now," the reasoning goes, "In any case, not a Government constituted as this one is. What we have to ensure is that it goes out on an issue of its choice, at a time of its choice." That no issue can salvage a group which has shown incapacity to govern -- governance being the basic back of Government - does not seem to register on these theoreticians.
Their sights encompass more than mere Governments. "You are worried about the 'opposition-space", I say. "What you are doing only ensure that the Government loses its credibility further." "The Government's credibility is gone in any case," they reason, "What we have to ensure is that the credibility of the other organizations does not go with it."
Strange again: who will put faith in organizations that break the very instrument by which they could have realised the goals they profess? But the logic of the "failure-proves-fidelity" school is the exact opposite. In their calculus, that they are prepared to bring down their own Government proves to the activists that they are more committed to those goals than to "mere office"! That the people could conclude something else -- that the activists are just bull-headed -- doesn't cross their minds. Governments come and go, they declare loftily, we are working for a vichar-dhara...
Sometimes I feel it is just plain naivete -- they do not really believe that the injury they are inflicting on their own Government will be fatal: and you can't reason with them -- the last thing that evidence can convince us of is what we do not want to believe. At other times, it seems the old ailment itself, the belief so common in our public life, the belief in one's cleverness -- in this case, that one can steer through by talking from both sides of one's mouth: the belief that as Government is continuing to press ahead with liberalization, the industrialists will think well of it; and that as the activists are continuing to agitate against globalization, those who are liable to get hurt by the opening up will rush to the larger family... "You mean we should just dump the massive support our programme has gathered among the people?," an enthusiast demanded recently. I felt that he had been carried away by the space that his pronouncements had been getting in the newspapers. The moments the Government is ousted, the news-value of what persons like him are saying will be next to zero. That seems obvious to me, but I get nowhere with the enthusiasts.
And for a special reason: there is a distortion in vision peculiar to the activist. To go on toiling away in the face of so many odds, the activist has to believe that, though they may not be visible, vast numbers are behind what he is doing. At times it is a necessary delusion -- but for such self-hypnosis one would give up. The trouble is that it is not always warranted, it takes a diviner as subtle as Gandhi to know when, in spite of being absent, the people are in secret sympathy, and when they are absent because they really don't care.
There is also the snare of consistency. "If we dilute our programme now that we are the ruling party," the reasoning goes, "people will say that the issue we raised was just an artifice, that we are not sincere about it." In part, the impulse is genuine faith: activists are like other believers -- to them heresy is worse than kufr. In part, it is a compound: of an excessive concern with image, on the one hand -- "What will people say of me?"; the anxiety here is not heresy, per se, but that others should not think of one as having lapsed -- and, on the other, an exaggerated view of one's importance -- the feeling that others have little to do except keep looking at what one is doing.
"It is all a conspiracy. Their economies are collapsing. They need our markets. We are committed to national strength, our Government exploded the atomic bomb. They do not want any Government to survive which is for a strong, independent India. International forces and their domestic agents have joined hands..."
The activist is more prone to rush to this sort of a belief than others -- so convinced is he of his cause anyone who does not agree with him is in his eyes obviously doing so for some ulterior reason. But this conviction -- that others are conspiring against them -- is not confined to activists. It seems to be common to Governments. "Foreign hand behind the conspiracy," Mrs Gandhi used to say. "A conspiracy of forces out to destabilize the country," Rajiv used to say. "Conspiracy of forces opposed to social justice," the Janata Dal leaders used to say. "A lie, a right-wing conspiracy," said the Clintons. "A conspiracy of communal forces," say Laloo and Mulayam Singh. "A conspiracy of the forces that are opposed to India becoming strong," say the leaders.... Such a comforting conviction -- that what is happening to one is the result of the conspiracies of others.
It enables one to continue in one's habits: as the present situation in which we find ourselves is the result of the conspiracies of others, everything will be all right once the others stop conspiring; we don't have to change our ways.
It exempts one from responsibility, from seeing that we have been brought to the present pass by something we have done or failed to do. Indeed, it exalts one. As one is, by definition, good, one is the object of conspiracies of the evil. If the conspiracies succeed, the case is proved: for in addition to being good, one is proven to be innocence itself.
Comforting, and self-reinforcing. The more we believe that others are conspiring against us, the narrower the circle in which we move. The narrower our circle, the greater will be proportion among those we encounter of persons who will bring us evidence of conspiracies. The more we shout, "Conspiracy, conspiracy," the less the world believes our charge. The less it believes us, the more convinced we get that the conspirators have succeeded in brainwashing and co-opting the rest.
But the more we succeed in convincing others that our adversary is a lowly, evil conspirator, the less he has to lose by conspiring. Nor does anyone seem to see that the crimes to which people have got accustomed, the crimes they expect politicians to routinely commit are so grave that to charge someone with conspiring is to place a flea on a dung heap. Moreover, the more the leadership proclaims that the current plight is the result of the conspiracies of others, the more it weakens itself even within the organization: as that is the case, there is that much less of a ground for taking steps against the ones whose negligence is responsible for bringing the group to that pass. I would, therefore, suggest that before putting their faith in conspiracy theories, leaders should ask a few questions.
To what extent can the current pass be explained by factors other than conspiracies of outsiders? Take for instance, the current image of disarray: can this image not be entirely explained by the doings of allies, of the Government's ministers, of affiliated organizations? Once the doing of these are arrayed, is there anything left which one has to put at the door of conspirators?
Second, it is but the job of parties which are in opposition to seek to replace the party in Government. Coordinating moves with others, opening lines to allies, taking advantage of one's blunders -- these are part of that job. Decrying them as conspiracies carries little conviction. A good test for a party is: if it were confident that the stratagem which the other is using will succeed, would it not have used the stratagem? And, when it did so, would it have regarded the charge of conspiracy as valid?
Third, every party has or has had control over some Government or the other some Central, State or Municipal Government or the other. Is there a single Government among the ones it has controlled which has been sufficiently free from the conspiracies of others that the leaders can point to it and say, "See, that is what we are capable of doing?
Fourth, it should recall the reasons -- always so many, always so detailed -- that it gave before an event -- say, an election, a rally -- why that encounter will go massively in its favour. And the reasons -- even more numerous, even more specific -- that it gives after the event to explain away its having gone the other way. The greater the discrepancy between the first and second sets, the more the result has to do with its own deeds, the less it has to do with the conspiracies of others.
Fifth, to how many persons outside their circle are the members of the group listening? When those outsiders talk of the State in which its movement or group is, do they ascribe it to conspiracies of others, or to what that group and its affiliates are doing?
Finally, is that circle itself getting narrower? Are more and more persons, specially those whom the group had flaunted till yesterday, joining the ranks of the ones it says are conspiring against it? Recall the Bolsheviks: all comrades one day, Trotsky the incomparable commander, Bukharin the theoretician; the next day, Trotsky the archconspirator, Bukharin the saboteur. Recall the Chinese communists: Liu Shao-chi, a founder, his essays and tracts compulsory reading one day, a closet-enemy the next; Lin Piao, the designated successor one day, the diabolic enemy the next... Soon, anyone who does not believe that there is a conspiracy afoot, by the very fact of believing that charge proves that he has crossed over to the enemy, that he has become a part of the conspiracy...
If after answering these questions, there is still ground for believing in a conspiracy, may be there is one. But in that case, surely, the operational conclusion is the exact opposite of the one on which individuals and organizations seem to proceed today. Precisely because there is a conspiracy to, say, bring down your Government, shouldn't you be behaving even more responsibly? Should you be doing things that help the conspirators who do not want to see, say, a strong India?
Daily Excelsior
February 26, 1999
Showing posts with label pokhran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pokhran. Show all posts
Sunday, May 25, 2008
The Tantrums Which Will Follow Explosions
Arun Shourie
We are so dazzled by reports of the strides China has made in enlarging its economy that we do not notice that one of the principal uses to which it is putting its new wealth is to multiply its military strength. Pick up any book or analysis about security developments in the Pacific region or in Asia, and the facts it sets out about China are bound to startle.
Here are some from one that you will rind in your nearest book shop: Asia's Deadly Triangle by Kent Calder, for long the Director of the programme on US-Japan Relations at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and later Senior Advisor for East Asian and Pacific Affairs to the U S State Department.
1974: While the two Vietnams are battling over Saigon, China in a swift operation grabs the Paracels. By now China has constructed a major air base at Woody Island there.
1974, 1978 and yet again in 1988: Not once, but thrice Vietnam has been invaded by China, and has to fight to stave it off.
1992: China's National People's Congress unilaterally decrees a "Law on the Territorial Waters and their Contiguous Areas." By the generosity of this new self-proclaimed "Law" China lays claim to 80 per cent of the South China Sea. The areas, it claims, ranges as far down as Malaysia and Indonesia!
1995: "The shadow of China looms large in these strategic southern waters... A major oil strike has already been made off the nearby Filipino island of Palawan, which prompted a Chinese land grab only 170 kilometers away in early 1995. A massive natural gas find -- the Natuna field off Indonesia -- has also recently been made and has likewise rapidly found itself within Chinese waters on Chinese maps..."
December 1995: Chinese drilling ships entered Japanese-claimed waters to prospect for offshore oil...
In the past decade border trade between Burma and Yunan has increased thirty-fold -- to nearly $1 billion a year. Chinese are now the main prop of the Myanmar regime, they are the ones who are building and controlling the road and transportation network in the northern and north-eastern parts of that hapless State.
And not for nothing. Calder reports:
"China has used its leverage strategically. In late 1992, Western spy satellites, for example, detected a new 150-foot antenna used for signals intelligence at a naval base on Coco Island, a Burmese possession on Indian Ocean sea routes... Western analysts believe Myanmar is allowing Chinese technicians to operate this as a listening post. More recently, China has been pressing Myanmar to allow access to Victoria Point, a long, rugged Burmese island within three hundred Kilometers of the Strait of Malacca, the vital seaway through which much of Northeast Asia's trade must pass. China is also upgrading the Burmese Navy, together with the roads and railroads that lead from its Yunan province southward towards this Indian Ocean..."
Calder details the extensive way in which China is developing a blue-water navy. And even more so, its Air Force. And, from a source which will surprise Indians! Calder recalls the yard-sale of Soviet equipment and how China was flush with hard currency, and writes,
"They (the Chinese) began by buying dozens of Su-27 fighters and made plans to produce their own version of Russia's top-of-the-line MiG-31 strategic interceptor, using a small Army of fifteen hundred Russian engineers and technicians.
Hundreds more were put on retainer, creating an elaborate E-mail network between Russian and Chinese defence research institutes that has since accelerated the development of Chinese aerospace and nuclear programs... China's air force modernization program is by no means defensive. Apart from the MiG-3 that is to be coproduced, China also reportedly acquired air-to-air refueling technology from Iran, which had gotten it , in turn, from the United States during the reign of the Shah. It also purchased Tu-22 long range bombers, IL-76 military transports, S-300 ground-based antiballistic missiles, and A-50 airborne warning and control planes from the Russians..."
True, matching China militarily does not ward off the threat it may pose if in the meanwhile our economy flounders. But to conclude from this that doing well economically will be enough, would be sheer idiocy. Similarly, acquiring a modest nuclear arsenal does not mean one is fully prepared to meet such threat as China may pose. But to conclude from that truism that one can do without the arsenal is just foolish.
Today our commentators are all denunciation. Land of Buddha and Gandhi, they say: but surely this is also the land of Krishna and Arjuna, of the "Dhanushdhari" Ram, of Shivaji and Maharana Pratap, and Lokmanya Tilak!
Not just that, the moment persons like me have in the past talked of the pivotal role of Gandhiji, these were the very persons who have shouted, "But you are ignoring the difference that Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad made." Overnight the BJP has made a peace-loving India into a warmongering country, they declaim, having expended reams denigrating us for being cunning, conspiring, congenital murderers!
Contrast what these pundits are suddenly writing with what the "Strategic Affairs Editor" of the very peace-loving, secular paper. "The Hindu", wrote in August last year.
The news which we noticed earlier had just broken out -- that the Clinton administration was about to certify that China was no longer exporting nuclear and missile technologies.
Under the paper's headline, "India in a nuclear limbo," the website carries the following from this very paper:
"As the Clinton administration gets ready to sell nuclear power reactors to China, India is confronted with a crucial paradox. About Five decades after China and India embarked on modernization, the great powers of the international system are falling over each other to offer strategic technologies to China. India, on the other hand, has "become a near-untouchable in the international trade in sensitive technologies... The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) does not explicitly ban cooperation in the nuclear weapons field among the nuclear weapon powers. In short, China has the best of both worlds; and India, the worst. As a declared nuclear weapon power, China has access to both civilian aid military nuclear technologies. in contrast, India, after serenading itself as a player on the global nuclear stage for five decades, has neither a credible nuclear weapons programme nor a robust civilian atomic power industry. India has no one to blame but itself for the unenviable situation...
"Many in the United States have raised questions about the continuing Chinese support to Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme and the wisdom of beefing up the nuclear industrial base of a nation that is seen by many Americans as a potential adversary. But the logic of the current policy of engaging China could well push Washington into civilian nuclear cooperation with Beijing. Where does that leave India? In a nuclear limbo...
"Any serious review of the Indian nuclear policy would result in two basic propositions. One is the need to end the nuclear ambiguity and exercise the weapons option in a manner that is credible but non-provocative. And, the other: Having come out of the nuclear closet, Indian readiness to engage the global nuclear order for a modus vivendi. If India is ready to play the game, it indeed has beverages -- a large nuclear power market, an ability to disrupt the global non-proliferation regime through diplomacy and future nuclear exports and its potential role in the Asian balance of power."
The condescension: "after serenading itself as a player..." The fundamental and unvarying theme: "India has no one to blame but itself for the unenviable situation..." The snootiness which makes them look upon all this as a "game". The generalized pentification: when the attitude of countries -- from China to the US -- is what we have seen it to be, pray, how is one to "end the nuclear-ambiguity and exercise the weapons option in a manner that is credible but non-provocative"? The rule Orwell had lanced -- when you don't know what to say, use a foreign expression! Hence, "modus vivendi", what this "arrangement or compromise" is to be, to use the dictionary meaning, "by which we may get along with those who do not agree with us," is left as an exercise for the reader!
Each of these write-ups deserve attention as it manifests a mindset. But I am on the other point: the operational advice. The Editor's advice in that analysis, as we see, is to "come out of the nuclear closet," it is to "exercise the weapons option." That advice has but to be acted upon, and the analysts break out in a pink rash! "Arms race initiated by India under the stewardship of the Vajpayee administration," the same paper fumes.
"Jingoistic chauvinism," it declares. "Public opinion within Pakistan inflamed by provocative and chauvinist attitudes displayed here," it pronounces.
Hence, the four principles of secularist-liberal-nostalgically, Maoist-nostalgically Lahorite discourse:
1. India is, it has always been, it will always be One hundred per cent wrong, with no one to blame but itself;
2. India led by BJP is, it has always been, it will always be Two hundred per cent wrong, with no one to blame but the BJP;
3. Pakistan is, it has always been, it will always be One hundred per cent right, with no one to blame but India;
4. Pakistan backed by China is, it has always been, it will always be Two hundred per cent right, with, not one, but two to blame - India and BJP!
But they are a dwindling race, and the more they adhere to these principles, the shorter we will have to wait.
The point is about Pakistan. There is no doubt that while the Government's decision to go in for the explosions was necessary, that while many aspects of the matter were handled with skill, the spate of statements which followed the blasts harmed the case enormously. Fortunately they have ceased. But the same temptations can arise tomorrow, and so the Prime Minister must enforce firm rules on his colleagues and party.
This is particularly so because of what is certain to be Pakistan's strategy in the coming months. Anyone who has been reading Pakistani papers must know that for eight months there have been two running themes in them.
One, that the country is close to bankruptcy -- that by July or August it will be close to defaulting on its repayment obligations. To get bailouts from the IMF and the World Bank, Nawaz Sharief had decreed privatisation and down-sizing of an array of governmental enterprises. But strikes in banks, troubles in WAPDA, stay orders by courts arrested the measures.
Second, every commentator, paper after paper has been warning that, in spite of his overwhelming majority in the Pakistan Assembly, Nawaz Sharief will never rest till he has acquired absolute, dictatorial power. They forecast this from what they know of his nature, and from the moves he has been making. First, he curtailed the freedom of the members of the Assembly. Then he struck at the judiciary. Then the President was forced out.
The emergency he has imposed is the result and culmination of these two factors. It is the exact thing which commentators have been forecasting all these months. But now that he has complete power, he has no excuses left -- except India. And no way left except to heighten tensions with India. For anyone in India to respond in kind will only be to help him out of a deep ditch.
There is the other aspect too. Pakistan has failed in regard to Kashmir. Its strategy now will be to throw a tantrum a day: "Unless the issue of Kashmir is solved, there will be nuclear war" -- the equivalent of Khrushchev banging his shoe on the table at the UN. And, so as to lend urgency and verisimilitude to the tantrum, to stage major incidents in Kashmir. Persons like the UK Foreign Secretary will be only too eager to pounce on these worked-up tantrums to initiate what they have in any case been panting to do -- that is, get a foothold for a third-party intervention.
To be provoked into angry, retaliatory words would be to help Pakistan along. For once let us be truly Buddha-like! To a taunt, to a tantrum he would respond with silence, with a smile!
That plus, to continue the work: defeat every attempt to send terrorists across, crush every attempt to stoke violence again in the Valley; and buck up the local administration in Kashmir.
In a word, it is done. it was done well, now get down to the next steps.
The Pioneer
June 5, 1998
We are so dazzled by reports of the strides China has made in enlarging its economy that we do not notice that one of the principal uses to which it is putting its new wealth is to multiply its military strength. Pick up any book or analysis about security developments in the Pacific region or in Asia, and the facts it sets out about China are bound to startle.
Here are some from one that you will rind in your nearest book shop: Asia's Deadly Triangle by Kent Calder, for long the Director of the programme on US-Japan Relations at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and later Senior Advisor for East Asian and Pacific Affairs to the U S State Department.
1974: While the two Vietnams are battling over Saigon, China in a swift operation grabs the Paracels. By now China has constructed a major air base at Woody Island there.
1974, 1978 and yet again in 1988: Not once, but thrice Vietnam has been invaded by China, and has to fight to stave it off.
1992: China's National People's Congress unilaterally decrees a "Law on the Territorial Waters and their Contiguous Areas." By the generosity of this new self-proclaimed "Law" China lays claim to 80 per cent of the South China Sea. The areas, it claims, ranges as far down as Malaysia and Indonesia!
1995: "The shadow of China looms large in these strategic southern waters... A major oil strike has already been made off the nearby Filipino island of Palawan, which prompted a Chinese land grab only 170 kilometers away in early 1995. A massive natural gas find -- the Natuna field off Indonesia -- has also recently been made and has likewise rapidly found itself within Chinese waters on Chinese maps..."
December 1995: Chinese drilling ships entered Japanese-claimed waters to prospect for offshore oil...
In the past decade border trade between Burma and Yunan has increased thirty-fold -- to nearly $1 billion a year. Chinese are now the main prop of the Myanmar regime, they are the ones who are building and controlling the road and transportation network in the northern and north-eastern parts of that hapless State.
And not for nothing. Calder reports:
"China has used its leverage strategically. In late 1992, Western spy satellites, for example, detected a new 150-foot antenna used for signals intelligence at a naval base on Coco Island, a Burmese possession on Indian Ocean sea routes... Western analysts believe Myanmar is allowing Chinese technicians to operate this as a listening post. More recently, China has been pressing Myanmar to allow access to Victoria Point, a long, rugged Burmese island within three hundred Kilometers of the Strait of Malacca, the vital seaway through which much of Northeast Asia's trade must pass. China is also upgrading the Burmese Navy, together with the roads and railroads that lead from its Yunan province southward towards this Indian Ocean..."
Calder details the extensive way in which China is developing a blue-water navy. And even more so, its Air Force. And, from a source which will surprise Indians! Calder recalls the yard-sale of Soviet equipment and how China was flush with hard currency, and writes,
"They (the Chinese) began by buying dozens of Su-27 fighters and made plans to produce their own version of Russia's top-of-the-line MiG-31 strategic interceptor, using a small Army of fifteen hundred Russian engineers and technicians.
Hundreds more were put on retainer, creating an elaborate E-mail network between Russian and Chinese defence research institutes that has since accelerated the development of Chinese aerospace and nuclear programs... China's air force modernization program is by no means defensive. Apart from the MiG-3 that is to be coproduced, China also reportedly acquired air-to-air refueling technology from Iran, which had gotten it , in turn, from the United States during the reign of the Shah. It also purchased Tu-22 long range bombers, IL-76 military transports, S-300 ground-based antiballistic missiles, and A-50 airborne warning and control planes from the Russians..."
True, matching China militarily does not ward off the threat it may pose if in the meanwhile our economy flounders. But to conclude from this that doing well economically will be enough, would be sheer idiocy. Similarly, acquiring a modest nuclear arsenal does not mean one is fully prepared to meet such threat as China may pose. But to conclude from that truism that one can do without the arsenal is just foolish.
Today our commentators are all denunciation. Land of Buddha and Gandhi, they say: but surely this is also the land of Krishna and Arjuna, of the "Dhanushdhari" Ram, of Shivaji and Maharana Pratap, and Lokmanya Tilak!
Not just that, the moment persons like me have in the past talked of the pivotal role of Gandhiji, these were the very persons who have shouted, "But you are ignoring the difference that Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad made." Overnight the BJP has made a peace-loving India into a warmongering country, they declaim, having expended reams denigrating us for being cunning, conspiring, congenital murderers!
Contrast what these pundits are suddenly writing with what the "Strategic Affairs Editor" of the very peace-loving, secular paper. "The Hindu", wrote in August last year.
The news which we noticed earlier had just broken out -- that the Clinton administration was about to certify that China was no longer exporting nuclear and missile technologies.
Under the paper's headline, "India in a nuclear limbo," the website carries the following from this very paper:
"As the Clinton administration gets ready to sell nuclear power reactors to China, India is confronted with a crucial paradox. About Five decades after China and India embarked on modernization, the great powers of the international system are falling over each other to offer strategic technologies to China. India, on the other hand, has "become a near-untouchable in the international trade in sensitive technologies... The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) does not explicitly ban cooperation in the nuclear weapons field among the nuclear weapon powers. In short, China has the best of both worlds; and India, the worst. As a declared nuclear weapon power, China has access to both civilian aid military nuclear technologies. in contrast, India, after serenading itself as a player on the global nuclear stage for five decades, has neither a credible nuclear weapons programme nor a robust civilian atomic power industry. India has no one to blame but itself for the unenviable situation...
"Many in the United States have raised questions about the continuing Chinese support to Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme and the wisdom of beefing up the nuclear industrial base of a nation that is seen by many Americans as a potential adversary. But the logic of the current policy of engaging China could well push Washington into civilian nuclear cooperation with Beijing. Where does that leave India? In a nuclear limbo...
"Any serious review of the Indian nuclear policy would result in two basic propositions. One is the need to end the nuclear ambiguity and exercise the weapons option in a manner that is credible but non-provocative. And, the other: Having come out of the nuclear closet, Indian readiness to engage the global nuclear order for a modus vivendi. If India is ready to play the game, it indeed has beverages -- a large nuclear power market, an ability to disrupt the global non-proliferation regime through diplomacy and future nuclear exports and its potential role in the Asian balance of power."
The condescension: "after serenading itself as a player..." The fundamental and unvarying theme: "India has no one to blame but itself for the unenviable situation..." The snootiness which makes them look upon all this as a "game". The generalized pentification: when the attitude of countries -- from China to the US -- is what we have seen it to be, pray, how is one to "end the nuclear-ambiguity and exercise the weapons option in a manner that is credible but non-provocative"? The rule Orwell had lanced -- when you don't know what to say, use a foreign expression! Hence, "modus vivendi", what this "arrangement or compromise" is to be, to use the dictionary meaning, "by which we may get along with those who do not agree with us," is left as an exercise for the reader!
Each of these write-ups deserve attention as it manifests a mindset. But I am on the other point: the operational advice. The Editor's advice in that analysis, as we see, is to "come out of the nuclear closet," it is to "exercise the weapons option." That advice has but to be acted upon, and the analysts break out in a pink rash! "Arms race initiated by India under the stewardship of the Vajpayee administration," the same paper fumes.
"Jingoistic chauvinism," it declares. "Public opinion within Pakistan inflamed by provocative and chauvinist attitudes displayed here," it pronounces.
Hence, the four principles of secularist-liberal-nostalgically, Maoist-nostalgically Lahorite discourse:
1. India is, it has always been, it will always be One hundred per cent wrong, with no one to blame but itself;
2. India led by BJP is, it has always been, it will always be Two hundred per cent wrong, with no one to blame but the BJP;
3. Pakistan is, it has always been, it will always be One hundred per cent right, with no one to blame but India;
4. Pakistan backed by China is, it has always been, it will always be Two hundred per cent right, with, not one, but two to blame - India and BJP!
But they are a dwindling race, and the more they adhere to these principles, the shorter we will have to wait.
The point is about Pakistan. There is no doubt that while the Government's decision to go in for the explosions was necessary, that while many aspects of the matter were handled with skill, the spate of statements which followed the blasts harmed the case enormously. Fortunately they have ceased. But the same temptations can arise tomorrow, and so the Prime Minister must enforce firm rules on his colleagues and party.
This is particularly so because of what is certain to be Pakistan's strategy in the coming months. Anyone who has been reading Pakistani papers must know that for eight months there have been two running themes in them.
One, that the country is close to bankruptcy -- that by July or August it will be close to defaulting on its repayment obligations. To get bailouts from the IMF and the World Bank, Nawaz Sharief had decreed privatisation and down-sizing of an array of governmental enterprises. But strikes in banks, troubles in WAPDA, stay orders by courts arrested the measures.
Second, every commentator, paper after paper has been warning that, in spite of his overwhelming majority in the Pakistan Assembly, Nawaz Sharief will never rest till he has acquired absolute, dictatorial power. They forecast this from what they know of his nature, and from the moves he has been making. First, he curtailed the freedom of the members of the Assembly. Then he struck at the judiciary. Then the President was forced out.
The emergency he has imposed is the result and culmination of these two factors. It is the exact thing which commentators have been forecasting all these months. But now that he has complete power, he has no excuses left -- except India. And no way left except to heighten tensions with India. For anyone in India to respond in kind will only be to help him out of a deep ditch.
There is the other aspect too. Pakistan has failed in regard to Kashmir. Its strategy now will be to throw a tantrum a day: "Unless the issue of Kashmir is solved, there will be nuclear war" -- the equivalent of Khrushchev banging his shoe on the table at the UN. And, so as to lend urgency and verisimilitude to the tantrum, to stage major incidents in Kashmir. Persons like the UK Foreign Secretary will be only too eager to pounce on these worked-up tantrums to initiate what they have in any case been panting to do -- that is, get a foothold for a third-party intervention.
To be provoked into angry, retaliatory words would be to help Pakistan along. For once let us be truly Buddha-like! To a taunt, to a tantrum he would respond with silence, with a smile!
That plus, to continue the work: defeat every attempt to send terrorists across, crush every attempt to stoke violence again in the Valley; and buck up the local administration in Kashmir.
In a word, it is done. it was done well, now get down to the next steps.
The Pioneer
June 5, 1998
The Pakistani Bomb is, and has been, a Joint Venture
Arun Shourie
"But What was the immediate threat?," ask the pundits. "Why now?," they demand. I K Gujral adds the considerable weight of having been Prime Minister to the argument: as one who had access to secret information as Prime Minister, he tells Parliament, I say that when I left office there was no threat that warranted the explosions.
By 1969 Gujral was in Mrs Gandhi�s inner circle. Mrs Gandhi had the first explosion in May 1974. Could Gujral tell us what was the immediate threat in May 1974?
The shafts in which the explosions have been conducted now were dug in 1981. And they were dug and prepared because Mrs Gandhi had decided that we had to move to the next stage, and a series of explosions had to be undertaken. Could someone go back to those days and tell us what was the immediate threat in 1981?
The decisions taken, second thoughts set in: and that unfortunately was not special to the nuclear programme -- Sanjay�s death had disoriented Mrs Gandhi, she began to hesitate and fumble on every matter.
But, as Mr R Venkatraman has confirmed, the decision was retaken in 1983: he has said that he personally went down in the shaft to see things for himself. Any recollection of what was the Immediate threat then?
Rajiv decided in 1990 to have the explosions conducted. Scientists were revved up. Any recollection of what...?
Narasimha Rao scheduled to have the tests done In December 1995. Any recollection of what...? The news leaked to the Americans. They publicised the plans. And brought to bear the requisite pressure -- something which was not hard to do on that Government.
Gujral says that when he left office there was no threat. How come then that simultaneously his Defence Minister Mulayam Singh claims credit for having "signed the file" for the tests? The Defence Minister�s secret information versus the Prime Minister�s secret information?
But so much of the information is public knowledge that one has no option but to conclude that the effort these personage should have devoted to planning a response, they expanded on shutting their eyes.
Everything that follows has been taken from American sites on Internet. Much of it is from the sites maintained by the Centre for Non-proliferation Studies, Monterey Institutes of International Studies, Monterey, California -- that is, the very first sites to which anyone with the slightest interest in the subject will go.
The pattern the information reveals hits one like a truck. First, to the knowledge of every concerned authority, Pakistan has been for twenty years single-mindedly pursuing a nuclear weapons programme: that programme has been nothing but a nuclear weapons programme, as will become obvious in a moment. Second, its own efforts towards this goal floundered almost at the outset: it, therefore decided to buy, smuggle, steal, get whatever was necessary -- for this reason, its programme has been a clandestine one.
Third, its principal helper in the venture has been China.
How very short public memory Is, how assiduously facts are obscured from our people -- that is what strikes one as one reads the facts today. For all of them have been published from time to time -- Just that Prime Ministers do not seem to have read them, and the rest of us, attaching no Importance to them, soon forgot them.
28 January, 1998: In the Hearing of the Senate Select Committee on "Current and Projected National Security Threats," the Director of the CIA said, "Conventional arm sales have lagged in recent years, encouraging Chinese defence industries to look to WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) technology sales, primarily to Pakistan and Iran, in order to recoup. There is no question that China has contributed to WMD advances in these countries."
There has been a tightening recently, the CIA Director said more on this in a moment -- and added, "But China's relations with some proliferant countries are long-standing and deep, Mr Chairman. The jury is still out on whether the recent changes are broad enough in scope and whether they will hold over the longer term. As such, Chinese activities in this area will require continued close watching."
June 1997: In his report on The Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions, July-December 1996, the Director of the CIA said that during the period covered by the report China "was the primary source of nuclear-related equipment and technology to Pakistan."
7 August, 1996: In its annual report on "Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control Agreements," the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency stated, "Prior to China�s NPT accession, the United States concluded that China had assisted Pakistan in developing nuclear explosives. Since China's accession to the NPT, it appears that China may have continued to assist Pakistan's unsafeguarded nuclear program and may have continued contacts with elements associated with Pakistan's nuclear weapons related programme. The United States Government has continuing concerns regarding possible continuation of China's past nuclear weapons assistance to Pakistan and Beijing's compliance with its NPT obligations."
September 1996: The Washington Times, a paper which has been following Chinese activities in this sphere with diligence, cited a report of the CIA dated 14 September 1996, saying that China had sold a special industrial furnace and high technology diagnostic equipment to unsafeguarded nuclear facilities in Pakistan -- "unsafeguarded" facilities are ones which are being kept by the country out of the reach of international inspection agencies.
The Centre for Non-proliferation Studies account of the news story records, "The equipment reportedly is of a dual-use nature and could be applied to either civilian or military applications. The report also said that Chinese technicians were in Pakistan in September 1996 to install in the equipment. The China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation (CNEIC) reportedly may have arranged the transfer.
According to the CIA report, 'In the aftermath of CNEIC�s ring-magnet sale to Pakistan and China's May 11 commitment not to provide assistance to unsafeguarded nuclear facilities, senior-level government approval probably was needed for this most recent assistance'. The report also alleged that China planned to submit false documentation on the equipment�s final destination. High-temperature furnaces (also called vacuum or 'skull' furnaces) can reportedly be used to mould uranium or plutonium into bomb cores for use in nuclear weapons, and mould titanium for missile nose cones and other key components. The equipment may have been headed for Pakistan's Khushab heavy water reactor."
The Centre records that the Pakistani Embassy spokesman vigorously denied the sale: "We deny that there was any nuclear-weapons related transfer to Pakistan." As usual Pakistan saw itself as a victim: "I regret to say," the spokesman solemnly declared, "that we seem to be becoming the victims of a series of leaks, some of which are... simply motivated or inspired by the electoral fever in the United States and by their own internal shadow-boxing among themselves."
The Chinese were cleverer -- we did it, but earlier, they exclaimed! The Chinese Embassy spokesman dismissed The Washington Times report as "groundless," recalls the CNS site. It had conducted an internal investigation of the sale, the Chinese Government told the US Administration, and had established that the sale had taken place in late 1995 and early 1996 -- that put the sale a few convenient months before China signed the pledge on May 11, 1996!
Late 1995: "The CIA told the State Department," recalls the CNS account, "that a China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) subsidiary, the China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation (CNEIC) had supplied Pakistan's unsafeguarded state-run A Q Khan Research Laboratory in Kahuta, a reported nuclear weapons laboratory with 5,000 specialised ring magnets for the top suspension bearing of high-speed gas centrifuges to be installed at the facility. The deal was valued at between $ 50,000 - $70,000."
"Ring magnets" are devices used in centrifuges which can make weapons-grade enriched uranium.
"Groundless", fumed China. It warned" the US not to impose sanctions on the basis of mere "rumours." Pakistan was as vehement. Soon China acknowledged that a sale had indeed taken place --- but that the China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation had made the sale on its own! The central Government of China had not known! A sale of components vital for a nuclear weapons programme, a sale by a Government Corporation, a sale by a Corporation of not just any Government but of the Government of China, and yet "it was made without our knowledge"!
1994, 1993: Agreements signed with much fanfare between Pakistan and China for financing and deepening their cooperation for Pakistan's "peaceful" nuclear programme. But this time let us start from the earlier dates in the CNS sites.
1974: Convinced about what Pakistan was up to, "Western countries embargo nuclear exports to Pakistan........"
1977: "Leybold Heraeus of Hanan Germany sells Pakistan vacuum pumps and equipment to be used in uranium enrichment........"
1981: "Albert Goldberg is arrested in November at a US airport while attempting to ship two tons of zirconium to Pakistan. Zirconium is used in nuclear reactor operations that can lead to nuclear weapons........"
1983: "China reportedly supplies Pakistan with enough highly enriched uranium for one to two nuclear weapons.... China supplies Pakistan with a complete design of a 25kt nuclear bomb.... Senior Pakistani nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan orders over 6,000 tubes made of special steel to be used for uranium enrichment... In June a US State Department memo says that US intelligence agencies believe the Pakistani centrifuge program is intended to produce material for nuclear weapons.... In July a report published in the USSR says that Pakistan can make five atom bombs in a year."
1984: "Pakistani citizen Nazir Vaid is caught smuggling electronic components, potentially useful for nuclear weapons, from the United States."
1985: "In July a US television station reports that Pakistan has tested US-made krytron electric triggers in conventional explosions. Krytron triggers can be used in the detonation of nuclear devices."
1986: US intelligence agencies allege that Pakistan is producing highly enriched uranium, which may be used in nuclear weapons... In September Pakistan conducts 'cold tests' of a nuclear implosion device at Chagai."
1987: "Pakistan acquires a tritium purification and production facility from West Germany. The plant can produce up to 10g of tritium daily. Tritium can be used to produce a thermonuclear device."
1989: "A 27k research reactor (PARR-2) is built at Rawalpindi with Chinese assistance... Western intelligence sources indicate that China is arranging for Pakistan to tests its nuclear device at China's Lop Nor nuclear test site."
1990s: "China reportedly provides assistance for the construction of the Chashma plutonium reprocessing facility."
1991: "In September, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said that Pakistan could 'rapidly produce' a nuclear weapon in the event of a serious threat."
1992: "In February, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Shahryar Khan confirmed that Pakistan has the components necessary to construct at least one nuclear weapon...
1993: "China's National Nuclear Corporation begins work on a 300MW pressurised-water reactor at Chashma... A report by The Stockholm Peace and Research Institute (SIPRI) says that approximately 14,000 uranium-enrichment centrifuges have been installed at Kahuta... German officials seize approximately 1,000 gas centrifuges bound for Pakistan."
1994: "Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says Pakistan has a Nuclear bomb."
1996: "Pakistan expects to complete its unsafeguarded 40 MW heavy-water reactor at Khushab. US officials believe that the reactor is being built with Chinese assistance....
Three conclusions stare one in the face:
The threat comes not from the recent explosions which Pakistan has carried out. it has consisted in the programme -- single-minded and clandestine -- which Pakistan has been pursuing for twenty years to acquire nuclear weapons.,
Its principal supplier and guide in this programme has been China;
Information about this programme, as well as about the pivotal role of China in it, has been public knowledge.
And yet the assertion, "As Prime Minister I had access to secret information. And on the basis of that I tell you -- with full sense of responsibility -- that when I gave up my office, there was no threat."
All I can say is that perhaps Prime Ministers are kept so busy reading "secret information" they have no time to notice what is staring everyone in the face.
But even this is but a part of the story, as we shall see.
The Pioneer
June 3, 1998
"But What was the immediate threat?," ask the pundits. "Why now?," they demand. I K Gujral adds the considerable weight of having been Prime Minister to the argument: as one who had access to secret information as Prime Minister, he tells Parliament, I say that when I left office there was no threat that warranted the explosions.
By 1969 Gujral was in Mrs Gandhi�s inner circle. Mrs Gandhi had the first explosion in May 1974. Could Gujral tell us what was the immediate threat in May 1974?
The shafts in which the explosions have been conducted now were dug in 1981. And they were dug and prepared because Mrs Gandhi had decided that we had to move to the next stage, and a series of explosions had to be undertaken. Could someone go back to those days and tell us what was the immediate threat in 1981?
The decisions taken, second thoughts set in: and that unfortunately was not special to the nuclear programme -- Sanjay�s death had disoriented Mrs Gandhi, she began to hesitate and fumble on every matter.
But, as Mr R Venkatraman has confirmed, the decision was retaken in 1983: he has said that he personally went down in the shaft to see things for himself. Any recollection of what was the Immediate threat then?
Rajiv decided in 1990 to have the explosions conducted. Scientists were revved up. Any recollection of what...?
Narasimha Rao scheduled to have the tests done In December 1995. Any recollection of what...? The news leaked to the Americans. They publicised the plans. And brought to bear the requisite pressure -- something which was not hard to do on that Government.
Gujral says that when he left office there was no threat. How come then that simultaneously his Defence Minister Mulayam Singh claims credit for having "signed the file" for the tests? The Defence Minister�s secret information versus the Prime Minister�s secret information?
But so much of the information is public knowledge that one has no option but to conclude that the effort these personage should have devoted to planning a response, they expanded on shutting their eyes.
Everything that follows has been taken from American sites on Internet. Much of it is from the sites maintained by the Centre for Non-proliferation Studies, Monterey Institutes of International Studies, Monterey, California -- that is, the very first sites to which anyone with the slightest interest in the subject will go.
The pattern the information reveals hits one like a truck. First, to the knowledge of every concerned authority, Pakistan has been for twenty years single-mindedly pursuing a nuclear weapons programme: that programme has been nothing but a nuclear weapons programme, as will become obvious in a moment. Second, its own efforts towards this goal floundered almost at the outset: it, therefore decided to buy, smuggle, steal, get whatever was necessary -- for this reason, its programme has been a clandestine one.
Third, its principal helper in the venture has been China.
How very short public memory Is, how assiduously facts are obscured from our people -- that is what strikes one as one reads the facts today. For all of them have been published from time to time -- Just that Prime Ministers do not seem to have read them, and the rest of us, attaching no Importance to them, soon forgot them.
28 January, 1998: In the Hearing of the Senate Select Committee on "Current and Projected National Security Threats," the Director of the CIA said, "Conventional arm sales have lagged in recent years, encouraging Chinese defence industries to look to WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) technology sales, primarily to Pakistan and Iran, in order to recoup. There is no question that China has contributed to WMD advances in these countries."
There has been a tightening recently, the CIA Director said more on this in a moment -- and added, "But China's relations with some proliferant countries are long-standing and deep, Mr Chairman. The jury is still out on whether the recent changes are broad enough in scope and whether they will hold over the longer term. As such, Chinese activities in this area will require continued close watching."
June 1997: In his report on The Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions, July-December 1996, the Director of the CIA said that during the period covered by the report China "was the primary source of nuclear-related equipment and technology to Pakistan."
7 August, 1996: In its annual report on "Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control Agreements," the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency stated, "Prior to China�s NPT accession, the United States concluded that China had assisted Pakistan in developing nuclear explosives. Since China's accession to the NPT, it appears that China may have continued to assist Pakistan's unsafeguarded nuclear program and may have continued contacts with elements associated with Pakistan's nuclear weapons related programme. The United States Government has continuing concerns regarding possible continuation of China's past nuclear weapons assistance to Pakistan and Beijing's compliance with its NPT obligations."
September 1996: The Washington Times, a paper which has been following Chinese activities in this sphere with diligence, cited a report of the CIA dated 14 September 1996, saying that China had sold a special industrial furnace and high technology diagnostic equipment to unsafeguarded nuclear facilities in Pakistan -- "unsafeguarded" facilities are ones which are being kept by the country out of the reach of international inspection agencies.
The Centre for Non-proliferation Studies account of the news story records, "The equipment reportedly is of a dual-use nature and could be applied to either civilian or military applications. The report also said that Chinese technicians were in Pakistan in September 1996 to install in the equipment. The China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation (CNEIC) reportedly may have arranged the transfer.
According to the CIA report, 'In the aftermath of CNEIC�s ring-magnet sale to Pakistan and China's May 11 commitment not to provide assistance to unsafeguarded nuclear facilities, senior-level government approval probably was needed for this most recent assistance'. The report also alleged that China planned to submit false documentation on the equipment�s final destination. High-temperature furnaces (also called vacuum or 'skull' furnaces) can reportedly be used to mould uranium or plutonium into bomb cores for use in nuclear weapons, and mould titanium for missile nose cones and other key components. The equipment may have been headed for Pakistan's Khushab heavy water reactor."
The Centre records that the Pakistani Embassy spokesman vigorously denied the sale: "We deny that there was any nuclear-weapons related transfer to Pakistan." As usual Pakistan saw itself as a victim: "I regret to say," the spokesman solemnly declared, "that we seem to be becoming the victims of a series of leaks, some of which are... simply motivated or inspired by the electoral fever in the United States and by their own internal shadow-boxing among themselves."
The Chinese were cleverer -- we did it, but earlier, they exclaimed! The Chinese Embassy spokesman dismissed The Washington Times report as "groundless," recalls the CNS site. It had conducted an internal investigation of the sale, the Chinese Government told the US Administration, and had established that the sale had taken place in late 1995 and early 1996 -- that put the sale a few convenient months before China signed the pledge on May 11, 1996!
Late 1995: "The CIA told the State Department," recalls the CNS account, "that a China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) subsidiary, the China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation (CNEIC) had supplied Pakistan's unsafeguarded state-run A Q Khan Research Laboratory in Kahuta, a reported nuclear weapons laboratory with 5,000 specialised ring magnets for the top suspension bearing of high-speed gas centrifuges to be installed at the facility. The deal was valued at between $ 50,000 - $70,000."
"Ring magnets" are devices used in centrifuges which can make weapons-grade enriched uranium.
"Groundless", fumed China. It warned" the US not to impose sanctions on the basis of mere "rumours." Pakistan was as vehement. Soon China acknowledged that a sale had indeed taken place --- but that the China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation had made the sale on its own! The central Government of China had not known! A sale of components vital for a nuclear weapons programme, a sale by a Government Corporation, a sale by a Corporation of not just any Government but of the Government of China, and yet "it was made without our knowledge"!
1994, 1993: Agreements signed with much fanfare between Pakistan and China for financing and deepening their cooperation for Pakistan's "peaceful" nuclear programme. But this time let us start from the earlier dates in the CNS sites.
1974: Convinced about what Pakistan was up to, "Western countries embargo nuclear exports to Pakistan........"
1977: "Leybold Heraeus of Hanan Germany sells Pakistan vacuum pumps and equipment to be used in uranium enrichment........"
1981: "Albert Goldberg is arrested in November at a US airport while attempting to ship two tons of zirconium to Pakistan. Zirconium is used in nuclear reactor operations that can lead to nuclear weapons........"
1983: "China reportedly supplies Pakistan with enough highly enriched uranium for one to two nuclear weapons.... China supplies Pakistan with a complete design of a 25kt nuclear bomb.... Senior Pakistani nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan orders over 6,000 tubes made of special steel to be used for uranium enrichment... In June a US State Department memo says that US intelligence agencies believe the Pakistani centrifuge program is intended to produce material for nuclear weapons.... In July a report published in the USSR says that Pakistan can make five atom bombs in a year."
1984: "Pakistani citizen Nazir Vaid is caught smuggling electronic components, potentially useful for nuclear weapons, from the United States."
1985: "In July a US television station reports that Pakistan has tested US-made krytron electric triggers in conventional explosions. Krytron triggers can be used in the detonation of nuclear devices."
1986: US intelligence agencies allege that Pakistan is producing highly enriched uranium, which may be used in nuclear weapons... In September Pakistan conducts 'cold tests' of a nuclear implosion device at Chagai."
1987: "Pakistan acquires a tritium purification and production facility from West Germany. The plant can produce up to 10g of tritium daily. Tritium can be used to produce a thermonuclear device."
1989: "A 27k research reactor (PARR-2) is built at Rawalpindi with Chinese assistance... Western intelligence sources indicate that China is arranging for Pakistan to tests its nuclear device at China's Lop Nor nuclear test site."
1990s: "China reportedly provides assistance for the construction of the Chashma plutonium reprocessing facility."
1991: "In September, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said that Pakistan could 'rapidly produce' a nuclear weapon in the event of a serious threat."
1992: "In February, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Shahryar Khan confirmed that Pakistan has the components necessary to construct at least one nuclear weapon...
1993: "China's National Nuclear Corporation begins work on a 300MW pressurised-water reactor at Chashma... A report by The Stockholm Peace and Research Institute (SIPRI) says that approximately 14,000 uranium-enrichment centrifuges have been installed at Kahuta... German officials seize approximately 1,000 gas centrifuges bound for Pakistan."
1994: "Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says Pakistan has a Nuclear bomb."
1996: "Pakistan expects to complete its unsafeguarded 40 MW heavy-water reactor at Khushab. US officials believe that the reactor is being built with Chinese assistance....
Three conclusions stare one in the face:
The threat comes not from the recent explosions which Pakistan has carried out. it has consisted in the programme -- single-minded and clandestine -- which Pakistan has been pursuing for twenty years to acquire nuclear weapons.,
Its principal supplier and guide in this programme has been China;
Information about this programme, as well as about the pivotal role of China in it, has been public knowledge.
And yet the assertion, "As Prime Minister I had access to secret information. And on the basis of that I tell you -- with full sense of responsibility -- that when I gave up my office, there was no threat."
All I can say is that perhaps Prime Ministers are kept so busy reading "secret information" they have no time to notice what is staring everyone in the face.
But even this is but a part of the story, as we shall see.
The Pioneer
June 3, 1998
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