World Tibet Network News Monday, May 04, 1998 (II)

NEW DELHI, May 3 (AFP) - India's Defence Minister George Fernandes said Sunday the country faced a bigger threat from China than from Pakistan and New Delhi would make nuclear weapons if it ran out of options.

"China is potential threat number one," the defence minister told the private Home TV network.

"The potential threat from China is greater than that from Pakistan and any person who is concerned about India's security must agree with that fact," it quoted Fernandes as saying.

His statement came hard on the heels of the first-ever visit to India by a chief of the Chinese army, General Fu Quanyou.

India exploded a nuclear device in 1974. It fought a brief but bitter border war with China in 1962 which led to a 14-year diplomatic freeze.

India has also fought three wars with Pakistan since 1947.

Replying to questions about a supposed build-up of Chinese military around India, Fernandes said Beijing had deployed its nuclear missiles in Tibet.

"China has its nuclear weapons stockpiled in Tibet right along India's borders..."

Fernandes also said Chinese military airfields in Tibet had been extended in the last six months.

He said there was "a lot of naval activity" off the coast of Myanmar (Burma), including the construction of harbours on islands owned by Myanmar where Chinese ships could be berthed.

Fernandes, a firebrand socialist in India's new coalition government, said China was training Myanmar's army and it had set up a "massive electronic surveillance establishment" on Myanmar's Coco Islands on the northern tip of India's Andaman and Nicobar islands.

Sino-Indian tensions have eased following a series of high-level visits which began in 1988 but disputes over their border persist.

India says China still holds 40,000 square kilometres (16,000 square miles) of its territory at Aksai Chin in Kashmir. China lays claim to a swathe of Indian territory in the far eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.

Fernandes, speaking about India's policy on China, said: "I think there is a reluctance to face the reality that China's intentions need to be questioned.

"This is where our country has made mistakes in the past. We made those mistakes in the early 1950s. We paid the price in the 1960s. And I think things have not changed."

Later, talking to reporters in New Delhi Fernandes said talks with China and Pakistan should be carried on to reach a "decisive stage" to resolve contentious issues and establish peace in the sub-continent.

"India is against war and believes in peace. Discussing confidence building measures with our immediate neighbours are not enough.

"We want negotiations to be carried on to a decisive stage while discussing these measures."

On India's nuclear policy he told the television network that India "is taking the inevitable next step. We have come to a point where we believe we need to make a review of the defence policy."

Fernandes, however, added India would build nuclear weapons only after a strategic review.

"If those threat perceptions are as one visualises them to be following the defence review, then you have no option," he said of India's claims of military threats from Pakistan and China.

"If the review leads us to a point where it becomes obvious it is time now to exercise the nuclear option, then we will exercise it."

K.C. Pant, chief of the task force constituted for the National Security Council, said India should have a minimum "credible nuclear deterrent.

"We are surrounded by missiles and there is no reason why the work that our scientists have done to develop missiles should not be carried forward," Pant said.

"There is a need for this country having a minimum credible nuclear deterence. And this opinion is growing all the time," Pant told a private television network.

India refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, describing them as discriminatory between the nuclear haves and have-nots.