Nuclear Bangladesh

In his visit to Dhaka last week, the Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi has apparently agreed to consider Bangladesh’s request to build its first nuclear power reactor in Rooppur. So carried away was Dhaka, that it started talking about replicating the model of “Sino-Pak nuclear cooperation”.

One would have thought Dhaka had every reason to avoid the kind of clandestine nuclear cooperation that exists between China and Pakistan. Unlike Pakistan, Bangladesh has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and is eligible for international civil nuclear cooperation.

Consider the following paradox: while the Chinese Communists and their Indian comrades are determined to wreck the Indo-US civil nuclear initiative and grind India’s civilian nuclear programme to a halt, Beijing will contribute to the expansion of nuclear programmes in our immediate neighbourhood.

The writer is professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore iscrmohan@ntu.edu.sg