Writing in the official Global Times (March 8) Liu Zhongyi, Secretary General of the Research Center for China-South Asia Cooperation at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, a Visiting Fellow of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China and a Distinguished Fellow of the China (Kunming) South Asia & Southeast Asia Institute, claimed that after having "forced" the Chinese ship Da Cui Yun which was seized by Indian Customs at Deendayal Port, Kandla, Gujarat on February 5 to hand over the so-called "industrial dryer", "Indian officials also said India's national security authorities could notify the UN pursuant to relevant Security Council legal instruments to expose the nuclear proliferation nexus between China and Pakistan." It said "India's efforts to deliberately turn the incident into another diplomatic dispute and to blackmail China were fully exposed". The article added the "private company in Shandong has no ties to the Chinese military. The company's Pakistani clients also have nothing to do with the military. Anyone with common sense knows that if China wanted to aid Pakistan's weapons and equipment manufacturing, it would not ship equipment through Indian ports. This move by India is a direct insult to China. It seems India could even determine that a steel plate exported by China to Pakistan is a piece of equipment used in the manufacturing of Pakistani missiles". It said "It seems that India is following an agenda that involves using the Da Cui Yun incident as leverage to get the US, France, and other Western countries to pressure China so that India can be allowed to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). NSG membership has been an India dream for years, but India wants to join the group without signing the NPT. The NSG was originally an international organization established by the US aimed at restricting India. In 2005, the US signed the US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement in order to woo India to join the US' containment on China, which marked departure from the basic principles of the NPT. The US double standard on the Indian nuclear issue has impacted regional stability and the nuclear nonproliferation regime in South Asia, placing enormous pressure on those countries which insist on upholding the NPT." The article warned: "China has worked to establish a new relationship with India, one that is between two major developing countries, and one that features principles based on "no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation." China hopes to realize the goal of "dragon and elephant dancing together." However, should India's diplomatic and strategic circles continue to repeatedly test China's bottom line, it would surely harm the future development of the informal summit mechanism between China and India." It urged too that "China must firmly counter India's provocative actions, and Chinese companies must seek compensation through legal channels."
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