Saturday, April 22, 2006

Chinese civil nuclear plans

The United States Congress passed legislation in 1985 to permit full civil nuclear cooperation with China. The Congress approved this notwithstanding official testimony that China had then been covertly assisting Pakistan's nuclear program. China became a NPT signatory in 1992. The Sino-American civilian nuclear deal was delayed by 13 years. It took effect in 1998 after the Clinton administration lifted the sanctions imposed in the aftermath of the Tiananmen protests.

Reuters had an interesting blurb on the subject datelined April 21, 2006. Chinese leaders view nuclear energy as a counter to increased reliance on hydrocarbon imports, not to mention the environmental pollution in Chinese urban areas. China intends to quadruple civil nuclear capacity by 2020. And yet, this would only provide 4% of Chinese energy needs. Opponents warn of challenges that include waste disposal and the steep cost of new generators.

China had opted to rely on a mix of American, Canadian, French and Russian civil nuclear technology designs. The objective was to keep China up to speed on the latest development in the technology realm in different countries. However, the nine nuclear reactors currently in operation barely contribute 2% of the nation's power today. This is a mere one-eight of the global average. The plan is to raise this to 4% over the next 15 years by building 30 new reactors. Many doubt whether this target could be met given the difficulty in constructing 2 major reactors each year. The reliance on fossil fuels is thus set to remain.

The Chinese are moreover pursuing designs that use less uranium as international uranium prices have tripled since 2004. The financial challenge ahead is daunting and China hopes to tap into the power utilities listed in its share market to help fund the nuclear expansion. This would be an interesting development to watch.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for posting this, Jaffna. There has not been any significant analysis of the Chinese agreement or how it compares with the Indian one in India's national media. In fact, the apalling apathy of the Indian media and the casual treatment it has received by intellectual lightweights has astounded me.

The contrast between India and China could not be clearer than this. China took its time, strategized, played hardball and out-negotiated the Americans. Basically, China used the lure of its markets - essentially exercising its rising economic power which continues to impress the Americans over a decade - to end its post-Tianamen international pariah status. China held the carrots and Americans gave up the sanctions stick. Compare this with India : Americans lured India with the false carrot of fake energy secutiry to create a sanctions stick! Shrewd Indian negotiation would have, instead, followed the same strategy as the Chinese. India should have held out the economic carrot - billions of purchasing power on Boeings, arms and nuke reactors - to force entry into the NPT as a full-fledged NWS without any obligations towards IAEA or US Congress thugs. In fact, India had two more levers than the Chinese : the threat of a rising trade with China - China is now the second largest trading partner of India - which could've been used to threaten the Americans, and the huge PR value (for Americans) of getting in bed with a stable democracy that has a large moderate Muslim population.

The proof of poor negotiations is in the results. China : negotaites from 1985 to 1998, and comes out ahead inspite of starting from a weak position of post-Tianamen pariah status and being an evil, oppressive, Communist state. India, on the other hand, gives away the farm inspite of being the subject of a global infatuation at the moment and having everythingn going for it.

The mind just boggles at the stupidity of the whole thing. How can we get into this such a losing situation inspite of having committed more dollars to purchase Boeings and nuke reactors from the Americans than the Chinese!! How much more idiotic can this get?

The implications of this deal are far-reaching. For example, who'll take India's bid to become a permanent member of the UNSC seriously if it's a crippled, second-class, nuclear state? How can India ever negotiate anything favourably from the Chinese or the Pakis without possessing the threat of an overwhelming power to annihilate them with nukes? How credible is a Blue Water Navy without a nuclear submarine fleet against the Chinese force projection?

THe immediate problem is also in foreign policy : America is not exactly the best ally to get in bed with from an international perspective. How much will our opertaing freedom in foreign policy on issues such as accessing Iran's energy resources be curtailed by American influence? For context, China also happens to be largest importer of oil from Iran : they recently signed the world's largest energy deal ever worth about $80 nillion US wherein Iran committed to supply oil to Iran over the next few decades! Did you hear a peep out of the Americans against the Chinese for this deal? No. But India gets slapped around for buying gas or having relations with Iran.

God save us from this mess. Let's hope that US COngresscritters are even more stupid than Shyam Saran and his band of negotiating Indian clowns, and that they will be too dense to understand how good this deal is for the US inspite of Condi Rice trying to drill it into their heads. The delicious irony is exactly this : for once, if the nuclear ayatollahs in Wachington DC succeed in scuttling the deal, they may possibly do the greatest favour to India's interests.

Anonymous said...

they recently signed the world's largest energy deal ever worth about $80 nillion US wherein Iran committed to supply oil to Iran over the next few decades

Sorry, that shold read "they recently signed the world's largest enery deal ever worth $80 Billion wherein Iran committed to supply oil and gas to China over the next few decades."

Here's the China deal:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-10/31/content_387140.htm

This article valued the deal at $70 Billion, but since then the oil and gas prices have skyrocketed so I think that deal may be worth anywhere near $100 Billion today.

Anonymous said...

You know why India went for such a bad deal? Indians do not understand the American psyche at a very fundamental level. Let me paraphrase Larry Ellison who is once reported to have said that not only must he win everytime, his opponent must lose. See this, for example:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/23/60II/main601722.shtml

America, in general, is just as obsessed with winning every time - and more importantly - trying to ensure that the other side loses. Everything the US does is driven by this singular desire, including flattering India about building it as a democratice counterweight to China. If you ever deal with America, or indeed any American in any context without this fundamental understanding of their nature, you are bound to make just as many costly mistakes as the Indian negotiators did. You can trust a venomous rattlesnake a lot more than the smiling and complimenting American in his suit sitting across the table working a deal with you. Not that they are personally evil : he may be the nicest guy in the evening when you share a drink, but business is business and regardless of the personal relationship with you, he will drive to maximize his gain at the bargaining table.

Anonymous said...

Thank-you for allowing me to express my opinion-
as one who lives in biggest concentration of PCBs in the world because of Westinghouse (WEC), largely from dumping reject capacitors, I learned about all the manufacturing boo-boos of this company-including the escalator that ate the woman, and defrauding the Filipino people with Marcos, WEC wanted to use experimental technology here to remedy only 6 of perhaps as many as 2000 sites, not even including their contaminated plant property. And they wanted to charge us taxpayers the tipping fees for this incinerator, which would have made us the only Superfund community PAYING the polluter to clean up their mess. Then, of course, I remember helping stop WEC from "cleaning" up Love Canal, because they said we couldn't use Plasma Torch here for their PCB sites because these sites were in soil, and the torch was only for liquid hazardous waste. Funny thing- Love Canal is in soil, too, so I told Lois Gibbs this, and no more WEC cleaning Love Canal. Then, in order to convince another community to let them build and operate an incinerator for them- they told them we just loved our incinerator In Bloomington, Indiana... But it had never been built- which an audience member knew and blurted out. They also pulled out of state nuclear waste dump construction bidding in Illinois because they refused to accept liability.
My point is- I don't trust WEC for anything, and most certainly not with anything nuclear. And, of course, it seems wrong for WEC to share any info with China, especially while Bush is concerned over their military buildup. Bush has no leverage at with China because we now owe them a scary amount of money. Just for the record, I'm opposed to nuclear deals with India, too, and any else for that matter. A Lakota creation story tells that when Creator was making the races, eac was given a responsibility. The White People were given the responsibility of FIRE. Instead of respecting Fire and honoring it for keeping us warm and cooking our food, they disrepected Fire and dishonored Fire by turning it into nukes.... and besides- there is still no solution for equipment/human error or to properly deal with the waste-whic is piling up as fast as unremedied Superfund sites across the USA.
Again- thank-you for allowing me to express my opinion.

Anonymous said...

thanks, Sneaker180 - the Lakota story was interesting and all the other information on corporate america - the likes of Westinghouse and Halliburton.

Anonymous said...

isn't Toshiba in talks of buying Westinghouse? It might be interesting to see if the deal goes through. A Japanese company then supplying nuclear reactors/technology to China - fat chance.

Anonymous said...

A nice post on chinese nuclear energy plans deteriorated into a comparison with the india US deal. The two are entirely separate.

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