Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control in South Asia after the Test Ban

3. Sino-Indian relations and nuclear arms
control
Hua Han
I. Introduction
China and India both began their nuclear weapon programmes in the
1950s, soon after achieving independence, and both entered a crucial
stage in the 1960s. This critical decade began with armed conflict
between the two Asian giants in 1962, in which India suffered what it
still often refers to as a humiliating defeat. The brief conflict has since
cast a long shadow over the course of Sino-Indian relations. When
China became a nuclear weapon state in 1964 there was at first ‘a
feeling of near-panic about the nuclear threat from China’. 1
Fear of the Chinese nuclear threat was not an over-riding priority
for long. It is possible, however, to infer a logic of cause and effect in
the developments of nuclear weapon programmes and policies
between Beijing and New Delhi, and some contend that ‘India’s
nuclear and missile capabilities owe much to the dynamics of Sino-
Indian rivalry’. 2 If this is so, the improvement in their relations since
the late 1980s should lead to a dramatic change in their nuclear strategies
and bilateral talks on the nuclear issue might be expected to
appear on the agenda.
The purpose of this chapter is to review the role of their bilateral
relations in the evolution of arms control policies in China and India
and its implications for regional and global nuclear arms control
arrangements. It analyses three key aspects: (a) relations since the late
1940s, which have a bearing on their security perceptions, (b) the role
of nuclear weapons in the relationship, and (c) their approaches to
arms control.
1 Deshingkar, G., ‘India’, ed. E. Arnett, SIPRI, Nuclear Weapons after the Comprehensive
Test Ban: Implications for Modernization and Proliferation (Oxford University Press:
Oxford, 1996), p. 43. For Indian media reaction to China’s first nuclear test, see Sen Gupta,
B., Nuclear Weapons: Policy Options for India (Sage Publications: Delhi, 1983), pp. 3–7.
2 Mohan Malik, J., China’s Policy towards Nuclear Arms Control: Post-Cold War Era, La
Trobe Politics Working Papers (La Trobe University: Bundoora, 1994), p. 35.