Phil Twyford

Wellington, June 22 NZPA - New Zealand should be opposing Chinese efforts to export nuclear reactors to Pakistan, says Labour's disarmament spokesman, Phil Twyford.

"New Zealanders expect their Government to be willing to stand up, and speak frankly and honestly," the MP said today. "The Government should do what is right."

A plenary session starting on Thursday at the Christchurch meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is expected to be told by China that it wants to build two new nuclear reactors for Pakistan.

Mr Twyford said that it should not matter that China was one of the world's most powerful nations and one of New Zealand's biggest trading partners.

He said international pressure was mounting against the China-Pakistan deal with fears it would stoke the arms race in South Asia, and reward Pakistan with nuclear technology even though it had refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

In 2008 the United States set a precedent for the deal by getting an NSG waiver for it to supply India with nuclear technology even though India was also not a party to the NPT.

The then prime minister Helen Clark and her then disamament minister Phil Goff took a strong stand against the US deal, backed by Switzerland, Netherlands, Norway and Austria, in a bid to push for adequate safeguards at the NSG.

But Mr Twyford said that with New Zealand expected to take over the chairmanship of the NSG for the next six months, Disarmament Minister Georgina te Heuheu had not yet made any statement about the Government's attitude to the China-Pakistan deal, even though she was scheduled to open the plenary session on Thursday.

"The Government must take a clear and principled stand," said Mr Twyford. "It should spell out clearly this deal would be against the principles of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and against China's international treaty obligations."

The Times of India newspaper today reported that the growing "clout" of China internationally meant there had been a lot of grumbling, "but little outright opposition" to the Pakistan proposal, though France was likely to raise its own objections at the New Zealand meeting.

It said that the row could also could spell trouble for India's own ambition to become a full member of the NSG, as there was a "growing anger, albeit impotent" within the 45-member group over the Chinese move.

China was unlikely to ask for a full waiver for Pakistan from the NSG but push them through "under a kind of diplomatic amnesia because there is a paper trail that says only two reactors in Pakistan had been 'grandfathered' by China," the paper said.