DRIVING THE ALLIANCE:

China-Pakistan alleged nuclear ties trouble India (Edward Luce, January 27 2003, Financial Times)

India on Monday expressed "deep concern" over China's alleged continued support of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme.

"Reliable and widespread reports of Chinese nuclear and missile proliferation to Pakistan cause deep concern," said Yashwant Sinha, India's foreign minister, in a speech in New Delhi on Monday. "There is also a sense of disappointment over the pace of improvement in the relationship [between India and China]," he said.

Mr Sinha's remarks follow the apparent accumulation of evidence by India's intelligence agencies that China continues to supply nuclear material and missile technology to neighbouring Pakistan.

Senior Indian analysts believe that China, whose assistance in the 1980s and 1990s is thought to have been critical to Pakistan's emergence as a nuclear weapons state, is using third party conduits to provide further help to Pakistan, notably via North Korea.

Last year, the US administration expressed worry over reports that Pakistan was providing uranium enrichment technology to North Korea in exchange for support on Islamabad's ballistic missile programme. Neither India or Pakistan, which both openly tested nuclear weapons in May 1998, are signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. [...]

Earlier this month India announced that it would set up a formal nuclear command authority under the control of Atal Behari Vajpayee, the prime minister. India is also one of the few countries to have pledged public support for America's missile defence programme, which New Delhi believes could help shield India from both Pakistan and China's nuclear missiles.

These kinds of concerns are part of why you'd have to think an American/Indian alliance is near inevitable. Posted by Orrin Judd at February 3, 2003 2:21 PM