74 4 { China’s Quest
unpleasant facts. India had on one border “an overt nuclear state” “which
[had] committed armed aggression upon India in 1962,” Vajpayee’s letter
said. Although Indian relations with “that country” had improved in the past
decade, “an atmosphere of distrust persists mainly due to the unresolved bor-
der problem.” Referring to China’s assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons
program, Vajpayee’s letter continued: “To add to the distrust that country
has materially helped another neighbour of ours to become a covert nuclear
weapons state.” Vajpayee’s letter then solicited US understanding and pro-
posed closer India-US ties: “We value our friendship and cooperation with
your country and with you personally. We hope that you will show under-
standing of our concerns for India’s security.”^17
Beijing took umbrage not at India’s decision to acquire nuclear weap-
ons, but at the “anti-China” justification New Delhi gave for that decision.^18
If New Delhi had alluded to a vague US threat, Beijing would probably have
been quite content with New Delhi’s move. A stable nuclear deterrent balance
between India and Pakistan would serve quite well China’s interest in main-
taining Pakistan as a balance to India, while reducing the chances that China
would have to go to war with India to uphold Pakistan as a balancer. Chinese
leaders must have calculated in the mid-1970s, when China began covert assis-
tance to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program in order to maintain Pakistan
as a balance to India, that New Delhi would at some point follow Pakistan’s
lead in developing weapons (something India had not done after an initial 1974
test). Beijing viewed a bilaterally nuclear-armed South Asia as less of a threat
to China than possible Indian domination of Pakistan, which could result if
Pakistan was without nuclear arms to prevent India from overwhelming it. It
was Vajpayee’s appeal to the United States that Beijing deemed threatening.
Vajpayee was appealing for US understanding of India’s need to defend itself
against threats from China. At bottom, what Beijing found objectionable was
an India-US understanding regarding China’s threat to Indian security.
Following India’s China-threat justification of India’s decision to acquire
nuclear weapons, Beijing launched a pressure campaign that lasted about
eighteen months and punished New Delhi in various ways.^19 Beijing lob-
bied the United States to sanction India only, and not Pakistan, on grounds
that India had tested first. Beijing lobbied Moscow and France for stronger
sanctions against India. It supported strong Security Council resolutions
condemning India’s tests. It rejected an Indian proposal for a no-first-use
agreement on the grounds that India must first abandon its nuclear weapons
program and unconditionally sign the NPT and the CTBT. It suspended a
Joint [Sino-Indian] Working Group on the territorial issue. China’s ambas-
sador to the UN, Qin Huasun, referred to UN resolutions on Kashmir for the
first time in many years, hinting that China might shift back to a pro-Pakistan
stance on that critical issue. China’s media again began using the invective
“hegemonist” to refer to India. That term had disappeared from Chinese