by Andrew Small
General Musharraf, the lead instigator of the Kargil operation, was on a pre-arranged visit to Beijing at the end of May. At this stage, although the crisis had already started to escalate—India had detected the incursion unexpectedly quickly—the situation on the ground seemed to be holding in Pakistan’s favour. The Indian army was suffering major losses and failed to displace the Pakistani force. Air combat operations had just started, but disastrously for India, which had already lost two planes.62 Crucially, despite the discovery of a Pakistani soldier by the Indians, with his documentation and identity papers, Pakistan was still able to maintain the fiction that this was being conducted by “mujahideen” rather than conventional military forces.63 Even then, it appeared that China was discouraging Pakistan from a confrontation that risked turning into all-out war.64 But the Pakistanis hoped that a negotiated settlement with the Indians would serve to consolidate its gains and so—while disappointed at the lack of support—were not overly concerned by Chinese expressions of concern and hopes of de-escalation. However, Musharraf ’s Beijing visit was notable for quite another reason. While he was in Beijing, Indian intelligence intercepted a telephone call that he received from his chief of staff.65 When the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Sartaj Aziz, met his Indian counterpart, Jaswant Singh, the next month, hoping to reach agreement on the retention of the newly acquired territory, Aziz was instead confronted with the tapes, which revealed the degree of the Pakistani army’s complicity in the Kargil operation.66 India—which subsequently released the transcripts of Musharraf ’s conversation to the media—took a firm position, demanding the withdrawal of Pakistani forces and a restoration of the status quo.67 At the same time the situation on the ground was shifting against Pakistan, as the Indian army started recapturing positions.68 The risk that the situation would actually escalate to nuclear exchanges was limited. There is some evidence that the two sides readied their warheads for possible use, though this is strongly denied by both Pakistan and India.69 The possibility of nuclear war was, however, at the top of the list of concerns for the two powers that would be dealing with the denouement of the crisis—the United States, first and foremost, and China.
As the situation in Kargil started to run away from Pakistan’s control, the securing of international support started to become Islamabad’s only option, other than a serious escalation of the conflict or outright defeat. Pakistan hoped that it might at least be possible to use the crisis to place the Kashmir issue back on the international agenda, and draw in third party involvement.70 With Chinese backing for its stance and American pressure on India, there was still the prospect of retrieving something from what was rapidly turning into another debacle. But the United States and China were speaking with remarkably similar-sounding voices. Musharraf informed a meeting of military chiefs at the beginning of June that the Chinese leadership had counselled Pakistan to withdraw troops.71 The Pakistani foreign minister flew to Beijing to meet with Li Peng, China’s second-ranked leader, who told him that Pakistan “should exercise self control and solve conflicts through peaceful means and avoid worsening the situation”.72 Tang Jiaxuan, the Chinese Foreign Minister, reiterated that “China had always supported Pakistan’s principled stance on the issue of Kashmir, but at this time, it is of utmost importance to defuse tensions and find a way out of the prevailing situation.”73 Washington was conveying the same consistent message, at first in private to the Pakistani ambassador, then to Nawaz Sharif and General Musharraf, and then in public when it appeared that the private messages were not eliciting the necessary response.74
But the final crucial diplomacy took place when Nawaz Sharif made two last trips to Beijing and Washington. Sharif arrived in China on 28 June and the message delivered up and down the line by Jiang Zemin, Premier Zhu Rongji and Li Peng was absolutely clear—China would continue to provide support for Pakistan’s long-term security and economic interests but Islamabad needed to de-escalate the situation and pull back its troops.75 Chinese officials were in regular contact with their US counterparts as the visit progressed to make sure that there was no daylight between the two sides’ positions.76 Nawaz Sharif cut his trip short. When he made his next and last roll of the dice, an unscheduled visit to Washington, the Americans had already been well briefed on the content of the meetings in Beijing.77 For good measure, on 1 July the Chinese foreign ministry made a public call for India and Pakistan to “respect the line of control in Kashmir and resume negotiations at an early date in accordance with the spirit of the Lahore declaration”, a blow to Pakistan’s position.78 The Lahore declaration was an agreement that had been reached by India and Pakistan at a historic summit of the two prime ministers only a few months before Kargil, but its appearance in a Chinese foreign ministry statement was also a signal to Pakistan of the degree to which the United States and China were coordinating their lines. Nawaz Sharif arrived for his summit with Bill Clinton at Blair House with Pakistan almost completely isolated. The choice in the end was to fight a war with India bereft of support or to withdraw troops to the Line of Control. Pakistan chose the latter.
Unlike its stance during so many past crises, China’s stance during Kargil could not be spun by Pakistan as “standing by in its hour of need”. There were plenty of things that Beijing was willing to indulge but outright military adventurism was not one of them. It was a lesson to Pakistan that although nuclear weapons brought many benefits, one of the costs was that in circumstances of crisis the balance of China’s calculus had now moved further towards the goal of preventing war rather than taking Pakistan’s side in one. The crisis also set a pattern that would be repeated during the “Twin Peaks Crisis” of 2001/2 and after the Mumbai attacks in 2008—close Chinese coordination and cooperation with the United States.
The period after the militants’ attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001, the first “peak”, was the closest that South Asia has come to nuclear war, and has been described as “South Asia’s Cuban Missile Crisis”.79 If the December attack had been successful, it would have killed much of India’s elected leadership.80 The prospect of war, which brought a million troops to the borders of the two countries, was sufficiently acute for US and British diplomats to be evacuated for fear of nuclear attack.81 China’s role was more limited than during Kargil, given that diplomatic efforts were not so uniformly directed at placing pressure on Pakistan, which wanted to de-escalate the situation too. The United States was trying to choreograph a series of high-level visits to the region in the hope that no attacks would take place while they were in town, and China was one of the countries that played along, sending the likes of Zhu Rongji, the Prime Minister, to India in the middle of the crisis.82 As significant, however, was what it didn’t do; as one US official argues: “The ‘dog that did not bark’ in all this was China—all we had to do was keep the Chinese informed…we had good relations with the Chinese and, for that matter, the Russians…. They did not stick their noses into it except to counsel moderation… This was a good example of the US working with Russia, after its unique relationship with India for so many years, and China. They let the US and EU lead [on this].”83
After the Mumbai attacks, in which 166 people were killed by Pakistani gunmen, China undertook something that resembled shuttle diplomacy—though both China and India were careful to stress that it was no such thing, and India made sure that the Chinese diplomat in question would have to split his trips to Pakistan and India with an interval in Beijing. Nothing would appeal to India less than Chinese “mediation”. But He Yafei, the Vice Foreign Minister, was sent to the two countries with the explicit goal of reducing tension and the status of a special envoy.84 Again, coordination was close between China and the United States in Beijing and New Delhi over the handling of the aftermath of the crisis. Also important was the issue of Chinese vetoes in the UN Security Council. At Pakistan’s request, Beijing had been routinely blocking any attempt to impose sanctions on Jamaat-ud-Dawa,85 the Lashkar-e-Taiba front organization, but i
n the aftermath of the attacks China made it clear to the Pakistanis that such blanket protection would no longer be provided.86 The question was not whether LeT was responsible—the gunman who was captured quickly spilled the beans, and calls from LeT handlers in Karachi were intercepted as the attacks were going on—but what level of involvement the Pakistani army might have had.87 Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN duly stated that he would accept the JuD sanctions decision when it came.88 China made sure, however, that it prevented the addition of Hamid Gul, the former ISI chief, to the list of names that were approved by the UN Sanctions Committee.89 Sanctioning LeT leaders was one thing, targeting their ISI backers was quite another.
Some analysts have given alternative readings of these crises. There are attempts to suggest that, in the circumstances, China’s persisting with weapons sales—as it undoubtedly did—or making boilerplate statements about Sino-Pakistani cooperation amounted to warnings directed at India.90 This is certainly not how it was interpreted in Washington, Beijing, or, most importantly, Islamabad. Pakistan is well aware that while it can sometimes expect understanding and a level of protection from whatever China views as excessive external pressure, its leash is a short one. The problem, as the crises have accumulated, is that while unprovoked Indian adventurism may elicit a different Chinese response, China—like everyone else—is now instinctively inclined to see some level of Pakistani culpability. As one Chinese expert explains:
If India invades Pakistan, we would be willing to respond. If India launches air strikes on Pakistan, we would be willing to respond. If India threatens Pakistan with nuclear weapons we may even be willing to extend our nuclear umbrella to Pakistan, though we wouldn’t be the first ones to use the ‘n-word’. But when it’s Pakistan that causes the problem, we can’t back them. What could we say after Mumbai? They obviously had military training. We couldn’t defend that.91
As with its enduring assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear programme, the most significant backing that China provides does not come in the midst of the latest crisis, but from the steady, long-term commitment to ensure that Pakistan has the capabilities it needs to play the role that China wants it to. The US-India deal changed China’s sense of what that amounted to, how unabashed its pro-Pakistani tilt should be, and the degree to which it was willing to bend the rules in the process. No case illustrates this more obviously than China’s direct response to the nuclear deal itself.
When the India exemption was put to the NSG, China was one of the club’s most recent members.92 Its application was received in January 2004, at the very same time as the Libyan government was handing over the Chinese bomb designs to the IAEA in A.Q. Khan’s tailor’s bags. Naturally, the question of China’s nuclear cooperation with Pakistan was one of the chief subjects of discussion with existing members, and a source of uneasiness.93 Like India, Pakistan was a non-signatory of the NPT, so the NSG rules would require China to refrain from supplying it with nuclear technology and fuel. The NSG had a provision, however, that allowed the fulfilment of existing contracts, even if they were with non-signatories. These agreements, the parameters of which needed to be spelled out to the other members, were then said to be “grandfathered” in.94 In China’s case, this grandfathering applied to the nuclear power plants that it had built, and was committed to build, at the Chashma complex in Punjab. In 2004, this amounted to the existing 300-MW reactor, Chashma-I, and the yet-to-be-built Chashma-II, another 300-MW reactor. NSG members were told that the construction of and the fuel supplies for the second reactor would be the end of China’s nuclear exports to Pakistan.95 But as the parameters of the US-India civil nuclear deal were announced in July 2005, Pakistan decided it wanted a counter-play. Musharraf ’s tactic was not to oppose the agreement but to push for a like-for-like deal.
The problem was that Pakistan’s shocking proliferation record meant that the prospects for the United States offering one—it was put on the table for discussion by US officials a few years later before being very quickly taken off—or the NSG granting a similar exemption for Pakistan were virtually non-existent.96 Pakistan’s best option was the familiar one: China. During a state visit to China in February 2006, Musharraf requested Beijing’s assistance with two more nuclear power plants, Chashma-III and IV.97 China gave approving signals but by the time of Hu Jintao’s state visit in November, when the Pakistanis had hoped to make a more formal announcement, it was evident that the Chinese were not willing to make any practical arrangements until the fate of the India deal was clear. Any attempts that Beijing made to raise the prospect with Washington were rebuffed. The United States stated that any further nuclear power plants would be in violation of the terms of China’s commitments when it joined the NSG.98
In 2010, observers were surprised to discover that China National Nuclear Corporation had signed agreements to provide two new 300- MW reactors at Chashma, with Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute providing the reactor design.99 Initially there was scepticism among foreign officials and informed observers—Pakistan appeared to have been over-selling the prospects of a Chashma deal, and this may well have been more of the same.100 But the agreements were real.101 Attention quickly moved to the NSG and how China would approach the process of securing international consent. Its approach was simply to brazen it out. When China was asked for clarification at the NSG plenary in Christchurch, New Zealand, in June 2010 it responded a few months later with the position it has maintained ever since: that these reactors had been grandfathered in China’s original 2004 agreement.102 None of the other NSG members accepted this position. But there was little consensus about how to respond. While the violation was blatant, there was no real appetite for a serious fight with China over a couple of power plants under IAEA safeguards, and for many of those who had opposed the US-India deal in the first place there was a dose of “We told you so”.103 Some officials closely involved in the NSG process suggested that there was a tacit agreement that, even if China’s justification was not really accepted, a blind eye would be turned if Chashma III and IV were really the end of the process.104 Why a tacit agreement should hold when a formal agreement had been so readily disregarded was not entirely clear. And in March 2013, reports of a new Sino-Pakistani agreement to build another 1000-MW power plant, and potentially many more beyond that, emerged. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson clarified that it was—of course—grandfathered.105
What the United States had achieved with India in 2008 through a major diplomatic effort, and a series of commitments on India’s part to bring it closer in line with the global nuclear order, China achieved for Pakistan by fiat, with no new commitments on Pakistan’s part. Among Chinese experts and officials in private, there was virtually no attempt to suggest that it was anything other than a tit-for-tat.106 The different situation—nuclear trade with India is open to all, whereas nuclear trade with Pakistan is essentially China’s preserve—does China no harm, and was the most that Pakistan could have hoped for in the circumstances. It was, nonetheless, a forceful display of China’s willingness to provide backing to Pakistan in the face of uniform, albeit weak, opposition—and a demonstration to India that the United States would not care enough to make any serious efforts to stop it, or even to extract a price. In the early stages of the debate in the US government various options for responding to the Chashma nuclear deal were discussed, but it was concluded that there were bigger fish to fry in the US-China relationship, and, beyond pro forma objections, China was given a pass.107 The military implications of the Chashma deal were minimal—civilian nuclear cooperation does provide a cover for cooperation with military applications, but this was not the point. It was less about balance of power than about balance of prestige. As one former Chinese foreign ministry official put it, “After the India deal, Pakistan needed this”.108
For all the bilateral problems that exist between Beijing and New Delhi, many senior Indian officials continue to point to China’s backing to Pakistan a
s their greatest source of concern.109 Through its “all-weather” support, Beijing is perceived to play an enabling role for many of the most egregious elements of Pakistani behaviour. Beijing has undoubtedly been pressing Pakistan to stabilize its relationship with India and has encouraged it to improve trade ties with that goal in mind. The limits of China’s backing for Pakistan are also clear. But so are the fundamentals of its encouragement for Pakistan’s role in “containing” India. Even ostensibly consistent elements in Sino-Pakistan military-to-military relations have a heightened strategic importance for India nowadays. In the 1970s and 1980s, China’s weapons supplies to Pakistan were significant largely because of Pakistan’s lack of alternatives but, as Deng Xiaoping himself noted, they were “rather poor in quality”.110 While Chinese technology still lags behind some of the most advanced Western militaries in certain important respects, the gap has closed, and Pakistan benefits from some of the most up-to-date PLA equipment. Just as India was caught off guard when Pakistan tested the Ghauri missile in 1998, temporarily giving it greater reach than anything in India’s own arsenal, New Delhi now needs to be constantly attuned not only to developments in Pakistan’s indigenous capabilities, but also to ways in which it might benefit from developments in China’s own military advances, from nuclear submarines to UAVs.111