Defeat in NSG, victory in Shanghai Cooperation Organization

It has been a mixed week for India’s foreign policy and diplomacy with one unsuccessful attempt in attaining membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) bringing in disappointment and one successful membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) bringing in cheer.

True, diplomacy often does not yield instant results. It involves years of consistent efforts. Happily, India’s efforts in the SCO were rewarded finally when the communiqué issued by the SCO leaders in Tashkent granted membership.

However, New Delhi’s diplomatic efforts were snubbed in Seoul when in spite of the intense lobbying that included cross-Continent campaigns between Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President Xi Jingping did not yield fruitful result in spite of Modi’s call to China to make a fair and objective assessment of India’s application and judge it on its own merit.

In reality, New Delhi had gone to Seoul without any certainty of victory and knowing that Beijing could create hurdles in India’s pathway, as it was nothing new. Even though China cited ‘procedural hurdles’ and insisted India sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) before getting membership.

But the real reason was that it did not want to annoy its ‘all-weather ally’ Pakistan, another non-signatory of the NPT, which too was seeking membership of the NSG. This Chinese tactics of hyphenating relations between India and Pakistan has set a dangerous trend.

At the outset, it might look as if India lost and China won but in reality the NSG membership bid was actually a case of ‘missed opportunity’ for Beijing. If China had adopted a different yardstick for judging India this time, it could have laid a foundation of a stronger relationship with its Asian neighbour.

However, Beijing decided to play safe by shutting the NSG door but opened the SCO door for India as it was convinced New Delhi would have a marginal role to play because it is the Russia-China dynamics which shapes the trajectory of the organisation.

Beijing has also made sure that even as it supports India’s membership in SCO, its ally Pakistan gets a berth in the organisation too. Pertinently, if ever India tries to move any resolution against terror groups, the motion will not garner support from China and its puppet nations in the SCO.

Further, fighting cyber terrorism would be another challenge as Beijing itself is a cyber bully and has (State-sponsored) Chinese hackers. Even though the SCO is not free from lacunae, it can bring credible benefits for India.

One, gain geopolitically i.e., to protect New Delhi’s interests in Afghanistan, keep a close watch on Russia-Pakistan nearness, rebut any useless resolutions put by Islamabad on the SCO table and learning from SCO’s success in containing the spread of extremism and terrorism in Central Asia.

Two, the SCO membership could give India a new way to build promising bridges with Central Asia by giving New Delhi more leeway in pursuing its energy interests and along with Pakistan’s membership, projects like CASA, TAPI, IPI might eventually also see light.

By Amrita Banerjee