(04-27-2010 09:59 PM)NIU05 Wrote:  How will India play now that China has signed a deal w/ Paki? Does this mean we are about to p*** on India? Obviously India will need a powerful friend and we know how Americas friends are being treated these days. Do the Pakis take offense we have been lobbying bombs in there lately? Does China want to support enemies to slow play us to death? ....Geopolitics.....

Don't forget that under the Bush administration, we have already reached agreement with India to be the supplier of choice of nuclear fuel. This is actually encouraged under the NPT - the idea is that US Enrichment facilities are used and there is no incentive for India to develop (expand) their own, thus being a net benefit wrt to the NPT. One of the interesting subtexts is that India's fuel cycle will produce Plutonium as an intermediate fuel, but supposedly the end product results in plutonium that is not weapons grade.

(04-27-2010 10:05 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  However, I don't know what the fuss is about. Pakistan already has nuclear weapons, so the Chinese selling them reactors is no big deal.

Agreed. The symbolic value is important, IMHO. First of all, the cost of IAEA compliance is probably negligible, and this could all be done by complying with the treaties. But, it seems to me a harbinger of what life will be like when China transitions to the most powerful nation on the planet (after the end of this administration, it's hard for me to conceive of any other result).