Old anxieties

Japan has politely but firmly raised old concerns about India's nuclear security doctrine.

in Singapore

HAS India's civil nuclear diplomacy come full circle? The answer is a provisional or tentative yes' with an explanatory note about the new context that involves Japan as India's partner in dialogue.

Significantly, some basic concerns are still being raised in some international circles about India's nuclear security doctrine. These concerns were generally believed to have been set at rest when India was granted exemption from the guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in 2008.

At first sight, therefore, it is strange that India's civil nuclear diplomacy may have come full circle now. Compounding the strangeness is the fact that official India can indeed claim to have successfully globalised its civil nuclear diplomacy. A number of key countries have followed the example of the United States in signing bilateral agreements with India on the peaceful uses of atomic energy. Noteworthy, too, is the fact that the latest major power to have begun talks with India for a bilateral civil nuclear pact is none other than pacifist' Japan, the world's only victim of atomic bombing.

However, Japan has now politely but firmly raised old concerns about India's nuclear security doctrine. And, this aspect shows that New Delhi increasingly finds itself being dragged back to the starting point of negotiations on peaceful uses of atomic energy. Official India obviously finds this somewhat puzzling. After all, the NSG, one of whose prime players is Japan itself, has already granted India an exceptional status. As a result, the international community is expected to treat nuclear-armed India as a genuine interlocutor for any bilateral accord on the peaceful uses of atomic energy.

What Tokyo is now seeking to do, with considerable diplomatic finesse, is to try and establish a bottom line for negotiating a civil nuclear pact with New Delhi. Surely Tokyo has not used strong language to drive the point home. But there can be no ambiguity about the Japanese government's real intentions of protecting its pacifist credentials at home and promoting cooperation with India in the civil nuclear domain at the same time.

These issues came to the fore during Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada's visit to New Delhi on August 21. Okada held wide-ranging talks with External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The three main streams of discussions were bilateral economic cooperation, the possibility of a civil nuclear pact and the need to reform the United Nations Security Council in a way that could secure rightful places for both India and Japan.

Japanese official Hidenobu Sobashima, who was present at the Okada-Krishna talks, later told this correspondent in Singapore, over the telephone from Tokyo, that a key issue raised by Japan was the possible scenario of India testing a nuclear weapon once again. According to Sobashima, Okada told Krishna that Japan would find it difficult to stay the course of cooperation if India were to test a nuclear weapon again. India was informed that Japan might then feel compelled to suspend or stop such cooperation. However, Okada did not visualise and articulate a specific scenario such as an atomic-weapon test by India during its ongoing negotiations with Japan for a civil nuclear pact. Nor in focus was the scenario of India conducting a fresh atomic-weapon test after the signing of such a civil nuclear pact. Okada's main diplomatic objective, which was articulated clearly in his talks with Krishna and Manmohan Singh, was to let India gain a firm understanding of Japan's own sensitivities.

A critical strand of thought from Japan was that its accord of this kind with India, as and when reached, must reflect New Delhi's own efforts towards non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament, Sobashima said.

Okada, for his part, was as categorical as he could be in his public comments after his talks with Krishna and Manmohan Singh. Okada said: I first expressed my appreciation for the efforts that have been made to date by India for nuclear non-proliferation and towards a nuclear-weapons-free world. Domestic criticism in Japan is high [over Tokyo's talks with New Delhi, which is not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty]. Considering that I asked for consideration on the part of India so that this philosophy of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation would be contained in the [proposed] nuclear cooperation agreement [between Tokyo and New Delhi]. I look forward to engaging in in-depth discussions with the Indian side regarding the formulation or wording so that the philosophy of non-proliferation and disarmament will be built into the agreement. I do not think we can suggest that India refrain absolutely from conducting any nuclear tests. But, if such a thing were to happen, then I think Japan will have no option but to state that we shall suspend our cooperation.

While Krishna was circumspect and did not get drawn into a public discussion on this issue after the talks, the Japanese side was quick to detect the trend of relevant thoughts in the official circles in New Delhi. Easy to notice was the official mantra that India has already committed itself to a unilateral and voluntary moratorium on any further testing of nuclear weapons as a sequel to the 1998 Pokhran II detonations.

At one level, New Delhi is thought to believe that its maximalist commitments are those it has already made in 2008 in entering into a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and in securing an exemption from the NSG's guidelines. However, these aspects of a potential diplomatic counter-offensive by New Delhi in its negotiations with Tokyo for a bilateral civil nuclear pact did not quite come to the fore during Okada's latest talks with the Indian leaders.

Significant, therefore, was the reasoning that Japan cited in June this year to begin consultations and later negotiations with India for a bilateral civil nuclear agreement. Breaking the news of such consultations, the top Japanese official Kazuo Kodama had then told this journalist that various elements were first taken into account. In the most updated position at that time, these elements were: the importance of India for Japan; the impact [of any Japan-India pact] on the international nuclear non-proliferation system; Japan's contribution in the area of civil nuclear cooperation; and the energy and industrial policy-viewpoint of the Japanese government.

Calibrated response

Subsequently, when Okada himself announced that Japan would begin formal negotiations with India, he cited one more factor that influenced him. Japan has closely watched India's actions since it secured an exemption from the NSG guidelines. And, the progress report was that India has been steadily carrying out its commitments, Okada emphasised.

Against this background of a calibrated assessment of India for nearly two years after the relevant decision by the NSG, a logical question is: Why has Japan raised this new issue now in such a categorical fashion? The answer is not far to seek.

One of the less-stated reasons that guided Japan in the first place in June this year was the fact that the Japanese knowhow and/or equipment were considered necessary for the satisfactory execution of the potential or actual civil nuclear contracts with India by some American and French firms. Moreover, implicit in the formulation about the importance of India for Japan was Tokyo's increasing strategic interest in New Delhi as a potential player in the wider geopolitical East Asia, where China is a dominant native power and the U.S. is a long-time resident power in its own right.

A significant public relations aspect that has come to the fore in official Japan's calculations in the period after June has much to do with the nuclear issue although this does not involve India as such. With U.S. President Barack Obama likely to visit Japan later this year for a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, the Japanese are becoming increasingly conscious of what the Americans did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki 65 years ago.

Obama himself has sought to project a benign image of the U.S. across the world in general and in Japan in particular. Oft quoted in Japan are his utterances that articulate his vision of a world without nuclear weapons. As a result, there is a growing groundswell of largely unstated but deeply felt opinion in Japan that Obama is perhaps best suited to heal the U.S.-Japan wounds of the Second World War for ever. The notion of an apology from Obama for America's 1945 nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is no longer considered all that unthinkable.

In August, when Hiroshima observed the 65th anniversary of the nuclear tragedy, the U.S. Ambassador to Japan attended the ceremony. This was the first-ever visit by a U.S. envoy to Hiroshima for such a poignant annual memorial. Surely, the American envoy did not proffer any apology to the people of Hiroshima and Japan. Some Japanese critics were also quick to note the U.S.' version that the envoy went to Hiroshima to signal America's solidarity with all the victims of the Second World War.

However, there is a new momentum in public opinion, especially in Japan, over the issue of a world without nuclear weapons. This should, in some measure, explain Tokyo's latest suggestions to New Delhi. The two sides have still miles to go before clinching an accord. But New Delhi and Tokyo, with their shared belief in the dream of a world without nuclear weapons, are not light years away from each other insofar as this political vision remains on the horizon.