The United Kingdom and France, while expressing strongly negative views of the tests, have stopped short of sanctions. But their aid programmes to the two countries will be affected. China expressed strong condemnation of the Indian tests which it said showed an outrageous contempt for the common will of the international community for the comprehensive ban on nuclear tests. The Indian action was seen as a move to assert its hegemony. New Delhi had maliciously accused China of posing a nuclear threat to India and that was utterly groundless.
Independent observers tend to discount Chinese denials.
The Centre for Non-Proliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute for International Studies for instance, has compiled an extensive record of Chinese aid to Pakistan. According to US intelligence agencies it says, China in 1983 transferred a complete nuclear weapon design to Pakistan, along with enough weapons-grade uranium for two nuclear weapons. In 1986, China concluded a comprehensive nuclear cooperation agreement with Pakistan and Chinese scientists began helping to enrich weapons-grade uranium. To escape US sanctions China then pledged publicly not to provide nuclear assistance to unsafeguarded facilities. However, in 1996 it was reported that China had sold a special industrial furnace and high-technology diagnostic equipment to a Pakistani nuclear facility which could use them in the construction of nuclear bombs.