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China Goes Public on Pakistani Reactor Plans
Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2010
China yesterday offered the most authoritative confirmation to date of its intention to construct two new atomic reactors in Pakistan, Reuters reported. However, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said she was unaware of discussions to build a fifth power plant in the nuclear-armed South Asian nation (see GSN, Sept. 21).
"This project is based on an agreement signed between the two countries in 2003 about cooperation in the nuclear power field," spokeswoman Jiang Yu said to journalists of a plan by the state-controlled China National Nuclear Corp. to construct a third and fourth reactor at the Chashma nuclear site in Punjab.
Her remarks seemed to indicate China might not feel obligated to bring the project before the Nuclear Suppliers Group for approval. The 46-member group, which Beijing joined in 2004, seeks to limit atomic exports to nations that have signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Pakistan has not signed the accord and countries such as the United States and India have asserted China would need a waiver from the export group to move forward with the deal.
New Delhi, Islamabad's nuclear-armed rival, received such an exemption allowing it to conduct atomic trade with the United States and other nations (see GSN, Sept. 8).
"China has already notified the International Atomic Energy Agency about the relevant details, and invited the IAEA to exercise safeguards and oversight of this project," Jiang said.
Until now, Beijing officials have disclosed little about plans for the two new 300-megawatt units in Pakistan. Information has been gleaned from Chinese nuclear firms' new contract announcements.
It falls to to Pakistan and not China to invite the international atomic watchdog to monitor the Chashma proceedings, an informed diplomat indicated.
"The IAEA can only place a facility under nuclear safeguards at the request of the country that it is in," the diplomat said. "If a country requests the agency to safeguard a facility then the agency would normally comply."
The U.N. agency's safeguards operations are intended to ensure that resources from civilian atomic operations are not turn to military applications.
China's growing atomic energy collaboration with the South Asian nation has unnerved observers in the United States, India and elsewhere given Pakistan's track record as a nuclear proliferator, mounting extremist activity within the country and the potential for the deal to undermine the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
On the China National Nuclear Corp.'s Monday announcement that it was in discussions to build a one-gigawatt reactor in Pakistan, Jiang said, "We don't understand this matter. You can make further inquiries with the company" (Chris Buckley, Reuters, Sept. 21).
Energy-poor Pakistan has explained its atomic collaboration with China as necessary for economic growth, the Asia Times Online reported today.
"We are facing acute energy shortages and these nuclear power plants are important for us to overcome these," an informed high-level Pakistani government official told Reuters. "We as well as China have said time and again that all this cooperation is under the safeguards of the IAEA and there should not be any worries or concerns about it."
Though Pakistan has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Islamabad and Beijing argue the precedent for the deal was set by the 2008 nuclear trade deal which permitted U.S. nuclear firms to export their products to India in exchange for New Delhi permitting IAEA monitoring of nonmilitary atomic installations.
Pakistan has sought to win a similar atomic trade deal with Washington, which has thus far demurred. The RAND Corp. recently called on the Obama administration to rethink its stance on the matter.
"The deal could be based on an exclusive relationship with the United States, rather than seeking broad accommodation with the Nuclear Suppliers Group," a RAND study stated (Syed Fazl-e-Haider, Asia Times Online, Sept. 22
NTI: Global Security Newswire - China Goes Public on Pakistani Reactor Plans
