Wellington, June 22 NZPA - The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) meetings now under way in Christchurch are providing the first opportunity for governments to probe China's proposed sale of two nuclear power-generating reactors to Pakistan, the BBC reports.

The NSG comprises countries who export civil nuclear technology.

Beijing is expected to outline the deal to build the reactors in Punjab at the meeting, but New Zealand's Disarmament Minister, Georgina te Heuheu, who will open the main session of the NSG talks on Thursday, has said it is "premature" for New Zealand to talk about its stance on the proposal.

"During recent weeks Beijing has come under growing pressure," the veteran nuclear expert Mark Hibbs, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the BBC.

He expected that the Chinese will make some kind of statement to clarify their intentions, but said there was not yet any agreement within the NSG over how to proceed.

Diplomatic battle lines are already being drawn, with many countries remembering the row in 2008 when the USA pushed through a special exemption at the NSG allowing it to sell civil nuclear technology to India, despite the protests of New Zealand and a small group of other smaller nations --.

India has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has an active nuclear weapons programme, and New Zealand and its supported strongly condemned that deal.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies' chief proliferation expert Mark Fitzpatrick told the BBC that the US-India deal set a dangerous precedent.

"It strengthened the sense of double standards," he argues.

The proposed China-Pakistan nuclear deal may well be a diplomatic problem that fizzles for a while rather than exploding immediately into life, the BBC said.