ABSTRACT
While China has escaped the odium and the pressures against 'going nuclear' because of its artificially accredited great power status during and after the Second World War, it is probably the most significant example of an non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS) deliberately aided by an ally in a focused effort to acquire nuclear weapons (and a missile delivery system). According to the preceding analysis and historical evidence, weapons proliferation did not provide the genesis of the nuclear programmes of any of the NNWS other than Israel and South Africa. It is not entirely surprising that some of the NNWS in our example especially the larger ones such as Argentina, Brazil and India have reacted, likewise, with suspicion to control measures that, in appearance and substance, seek to impose and freeze an inequality of obligations and status upon them.
