4 Nuclear Proliferation in South Asia

The issue of nuclear proliferation in South Asia is particularly important to China. The Middle East is far away from China. Although the proliferation in this region may cause regional instability which will influence China, China's main interest in this region is on trade, especially the energy trade. As for the nuclear proliferation issue in Northeast Asia, North Korea is the most important player who is determined to develop its nuclear weapons. Other key players are either nuclear states or those under the US nuclear umbrella. It is not quite possible that these states would develop their own nuclear weapons just because North Korea is trying to do so (of course, this should not be used as an excuse to accept North Korea's nuclear weapons development).

Under the pressure of the North Korean nuclear proliferation, the US appears simply helpless. If South Korea and Japan take the opportunity to start their nuclear weapons programs and thus get rid of the political and economic control imposed by the US, the US would have no choice but to admit its failure in alliance management. This is not impossible in the future, but we cannot see this happen in the next 20 years.

However, India and Pakistan, the two big powers in South Asia, have unusual relations with China. India is absolutely a big power in South Asia. Although its GDP per capita is still small, India has great potential for development. The GDP gap between China and India is about ten years, and the gap of infrastructure construction is about 20 years. Therefore, it is quite possible for India to become a competitive big power in the future. Similar to China, India is a developing country and has the potential to rise to be a big state or even a superpower. Territorial disputes now exist between the two states; therefore, the relationship between China and India is witnessing both cooperation and competition. After India has successfully developed its nuclear weapons, both of the two states, for the first time in history, have nuclear deterrence capacity, which, at least qualitatively, enables them to have a symmetrical power in terms of nuclear deterrence. Although the symmetry is qualitative rather than quantitative, it is the case that any settlement of territorial disputes by force will be even more difficult.

Pakistan is an “all-weather strategic cooperation partner” of China. Nevertheless, its nuclear weapons program has intensified nuclear competition in the region, resulting in a more complicated security situation around China. China and Pakistan are not military allies and China's military aid to Pakistan is just based on the principle of mutual benefits, not on some mutual defense treaty. Pakistan should, above all, be self-reliant in its defense. Even though Pakistan and the US are military allies now, the US will not play a role in helping Pakistan defeat its enemies when Pakistan's national sovereignty and territorial integrity are undermined. Therefore, out of realistic considerations, Pakistan cannot pin its hope of national security on any alliance or other states. It will be inclined to develop its independent defense capacity with nuclear deterrence capacity at its core.

India and Pakistan have acquired nuclear weapons almost at the same time, making it more difficult to constrain their development. From the perspective of nonproliferation, all states should condemn it and the development of nuclear weapons of the two states has a great impact on the international nuclear non-proliferation. The international community should impose immediate sanctions on both of them, rather than hold discriminative policies. However, it is very difficult for some western states to do so since they all only take into account their own interests. In 1998, the US imposed sanctions on India and Pakistan immediately after their nuclear tests. However, in order to take full advantage of a “front state” like Pakistan to help it in the War on Terrorism in Afghanistan, the US not only lifted the sanctions on Pakistan, but even pardoned Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani “father of nuclear weapons”who ran the transnational network of nuclear smuggling. Furthermore, the US deemed Pakistan as “a major non-NATO ally” in 2004, a status that India has not yet acquired. In the meantime, in order to balance a rising China, the US has been trying to lift the sanctions on India in the field of civil nuclear energy since 2006. The US first modified the domestic nuclear export control law, removing the domestic obstacle against the cooperation between India and the US on nuclear energy. In 1975, the US established The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), pushing the international community to implement sanctions on India for its “Peaceful Nuclear Explosion” in 1974. However, in 2007, the US urged NSG to modify the international rules in favor of India, which lifted the sanctions on India for civilian nuclear energy. At the same time, the US kept the sanctions on states like Pakistan in this regard. In 2008, the US signed the US-India nuclear cooperation treaty. The United States' utilitarian and short-sighted standpoint exerted great influence on other states' policy choices on the Indian/Pakistani nuclear problems and other nuclear issues.

India and Pakistan began to develop nuclear weapons out of realistic considerations for national security. For India, the core national strategic interests include the interests it can get from its competition with China and Pakistan, national interests in the Indian Ocean and its monopoly on the Indian Ocean. In the national strategy of India, nuclear weapons are the most fundamental support for its national security. For Pakistan, the core interests are to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity in the competition with India and to have an effective balance against India's nuclear deterrence capacity. Since nuclear weapons play a key role in their core interests of national sovereignty and security, seeking an independent defense with nuclear deterrence capacities becomes a “reasonable” choice for the two neighboring states.

Nevertheless, the rationality of individual actors does not necessarily guarantee the rationality of the whole system. The most obvious example is the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Cuba allowed or pleaded with the Soviet Union to deploy nuclear weapons in Cuba. The Soviet Union, at Cuba's request, deployed nuclear weapons in Cuba's territory. In this case, both Cuba and the Soviet Union demonstrated their “individual rationality”. The reason for the deployment was to deter the United States' potential preemptive military actions and to balance the nuclear weapons that the US deployed around the Soviet Union. The “individual rationality” on the US side is: the US possesses the right to deploy nuclear weapons around the Soviet Union, but the Soviet Union cannot be allowed to deploy its nuclear weapons around the US. Since the 42 nuclear missiles that the Soviet Union had deployed in Cuba enabled the Soviet Union to have to ability to launch a preemptive nuclear attack on the US, the US could not bear it. Therefore, the US dispatched about 200 ships to “isolate” the Cuban sea area —a blockade on Cuba. Under the intense pressure from the US, the Soviet Union decided to withdraw all the nuclear missiles deployed in Cuba without consulting Cuba. In this case the “security rationality” of the Soviet Union (avoiding a nuclear war with the US) replaced its “sovereignty rationality” (balancing the United States). And thus, the Soviet Union's “individual rationality” was overwhelmed by that of the United States (Of course, the US also promised to withdraw its nuclear weapons in Turkey).

Nuclear weapons can play a role in both retaliatory second strikes and aggressive preemptive attacks. Because they are mass-casualty weapons and can be used to launch a first strike, there appears a reasonable need for nuclear non-proliferation and overall nuclear disarmament. The contradictory “individual rationality” of the abovementioned states is likely to result in irrational gaming between two great powers, which poses a great threat to human society. After India and Pakistan, two neighboring rival states in South Asia, acquired nuclear weapons, serious conventional conflicts constantly broke out between them. In 1999, India and Pakistan were involved in a major conflict in Cargill that was under the control of India. In this conflict, India put in large quantities of air force and both India and Pakistan suffered heavy casualties. This was a major military confrontation that happened after both India and Pakistan had acquired nuclear weapons. It has been rare that two nuclear states fought a local war after the Cuban missile crisis. In this conflict, although nuclear weapons failed to prevent military confrontation between two nuclear states, they had indeed prevented the escalation of the conflict. However, we cannot assume that nuclear states can always avoid major conflicts or properly control crises in the future, which makes demanding requirements in the international community in terms of managing conflicts and curbing proliferation.