China is willing to discuss "possibilities" with India on its bid to become a fully fledged member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a senior Chinese diplomat said on Monday, holding out an olive branch ahead of a summit in India. India last month said it had held "substantive" talks with China on its attempt to join the NSG, a 48-member grouping of countries that trades in civil nuclear technology.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is campaigning to join the NSG to back a multi-billion-dollar drive to build nuclear power plants in partnership with Russia, the United States and France, and reduce India's reliance on polluting fossil fuels. Yet his bid to win accession to the group, founded in response to India's first atomic weapons test in 1974, has failed to win over strategic rival China, which enjoys a de facto veto because it operates by consensus.