742 { China’s Quest
Regarding Sino-US interactions, at the very beginning of Sino-US normal-
ization in the early 1980s US leaders had identified nuclear nonproliferation
as a common interest on which a more cooperative US-PRC relation could be
built. During the 1980s that aspiration seemed to come to fruition as Beijing
step by step entered the IAEA (the part of the NPT structure that actually
implements the treaty), and finally signed the NPT in 1992. US leaders also
understood that China played an important role in South Asian nuclear poli-
tics, both via its cooperation with Pakistan’s nuclear programs and as a threat
inspiring India to acquire nuclear weapons. It thus seemed logical that the
United States should partner with China to help persuade Pakistan and India
to enter the NPT system as non-nuclear weapons states, that is, as states not
legitimately possessing nuclear weapons under the imprimatur of the NPT.
Prior to the opening of the NPT E&R Conference, Washington persuaded
Beijing to issue a statement giving to non-nuclear weapons members of the
NPT assurances against nuclear threat or attack. This Beijing did in April1995.^12 In the Security Council, too, Washington and Beijing worked to-
gether to reassure non-nuclear-weapons states, notably India and Pakistan,
in order to put pressure on them to accede to the NPT. Thus Security Council
Resolution 984 of April 1995, supported by Washington and Beijing, recog-
nizes “the legitimate interest of non-nuclear-weapon States Parties to the
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to receive assurances
that the Security Council, and above all its nuclear-weapon State permanent
members, will act immediately in accordance with the relevant provisions of
the Charter of the United Nations, in the event that such States are the victim
of an act of, or object of a threat of, aggression in which nuclear weapons are
used.”^13
From an Indian perspective these were extremely dangerous moves. If
India did not join the NPT as a non-nuclear weapons state—which it cer-
tainly would not, since long-standing Indian policy was to keep open its
nuclear option—the use or threatened use of nuclear force against it was, at
least partially and implicitly, legitimized by Resolution 984. India’s represen-
tative at the UN objected strongly, saying: “One would hope that by offering
a draft resolution of this kind, the nuclear weapons States are not telling the
non-members of the NPT that they, the nuclear weapons States, are free to
use nuclear weapons against them [non-NPT signatories], because this would
have implications which are too frightening to contemplate.”^14 In other words,
Resolution 984 might legitimize nuclear coercion by NPT-signatory China
against non-signatory India—at least so Indian leaders feared. The intense
pressure India faced at the NPT E&R Conference led India’s government to
decide to conduct a nuclear test as a definitive rejection of the multiple pres-
sures being applied to India to renounce its nuclear weapon option. Foreign
governments learned of the plan, however, and heavy international pressure
forced its cancellation.^15