More Chinese nuclear reactors for Pakistan

[Neo]

More Chinese nuclear reactors for Pakistan

Ravi Velloor
The Straits Times
Publication Date : 30-04-2010

China is poised to thumb its nose at the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and give Pakistan two nuclear reactors, the usually well-informed Carnegie Foundation has said.

The reactors, of 650MW capacity each, would be twice the size of the two that China has already built for Pakistan at Chashma under a previous agreement. Chashma 1 began operating in 2000 while Chashma 2 will probably be activated next year.

China joined the NSG in 2004 but had made it clear at the time that it had prior commitments to build Chashma 2.

The new deal is of a different size and scale, and was negotiated while China was firmly in the NSG, which has strict codes on nuclear commerce.

NSG members are banned from supplying nuclear equipment to states that do not come under full International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, which include Pakistan.

Nevertheless, the strategic community has been aware of the rumoured deal for months, although this is the first time a respected think-tank has spoken of it in definite terms.

'The transaction is about to happen at a time when China's increasingly ambitious nuclear energy programme is becoming more autonomous,' wrote Mr Mark Hibbs, a respected analyst on nuclear issues.

'President Barack Obama will not openly criticise the Chinese export because Washington, in the context of a bilateral security dialogue with Islamabad, may be sensitive to Pakistan's desire for civilian nuclear cooperation, in the wake of the sweeping US-India nuclear deal which entered into force in 2008 after considerable arm-twisting of (NSG) states by the US, France and Russia.'

Should the deal be announced soon, as expected, it would underscore the mainland's 'all-weather friendship' with Pakistan and its determination to keep Islamabad firmly in its corner at a time when the US has stopped holding its nose on Pakistan and is actively building a strategic partnership with it.

It would also come a month after China reportedly opened a missile plant in Iran, further evidence of its assertive foreign policy. Washington expects to convince the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran and that cannot happen without Beijing's acquiescence.

Last month, Pakistan's Foreign Minister led a delegation to Washington to hold an inaugural strategic dialogue with the US State Department.

A long wish list presented at the time to the US reportedly included a demand for a civilian nuclear deal similar to the one Washington signed with India.

The US, while acknowledging that the nuclear deal figured in the talks, indicated at the time that it would be years before Pakistan - given its spotty record on nuclear proliferation - could be considered for a deal anything similar to the one clinched by India. While it may not be prepared to dilute its position, it may close an eye to Beijing's move.

According to analyst Mr Hibbs, Beijing may not want to keep the deal confidential. Instead, it will justify its decision to build Chashma 3 and Chashma 4 on the grounds that it is important for South Asian stability.

Yesterday, the Chinese government responded to questions on the deal at a routine Ministry of Foreign Affairs media conference, with spokesman Jiang Yu saying that Beijing has been cooperating with Pakistan in the field of civilian nuclear usage in recent years.

She said: 'The cooperation between the two countries is for peaceful purposes and in line with our international commitments, and we accept the supervision of IAEA.'

Additional reporting by Peh Shing Huei in Beijing

http://www.asianewsnet.net/home/news.php?id=11660

[Zaki]

One thing is still clear whether this is Chashma 3&4 having total generation capacity of 650MW or new reactors having 650MW each.

I guess its a typo and they are talking about Chashma 3&4

[A1Kaid]

Iran too said it would help out with Pakistan's "energy crisis" probably more oil/fuel to come...

[Interceptor]

Originally Posted by A1Kaid

Iran too said it would help out with Pakistan's "energy crisis" probably more oil/fuel to come...

No Iran is willing to provide Pakistan with 4000MW of immediate power across the border, if we sign over to their unit price. Im not sure whether the government has come to terms with it.

[Zaki]

Originally Posted by Interceptor

No Iran is willing to provide Pakistan with 4000MW of immediate power across the border, if we sign over to their unit price. Im not sure whether the government has come to terms with it.

No Iran had offered only 1000MW of electricity to Pakistan 100MW in a seperate project that later on has been doubled to 2200MW in total. Pakistan is negotiating with Iran for 1000MW only that will be added in the national grid by 2015 (after building the basic infrastructure of across the border).

You are probably talking about the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline that will be used to used to generate 4000MW of electricity

[Neo]

China Set to Supply Pakistan with Two New Nuclear Reactors

Written by Harsh Pant

As the UN’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference is underway in New York, reports that China is set to allow its state entities to supply two new nuclear reactors to Pakistan should be a matter of grave concern.

Chinese authorities have recently confirmed that China National Nuclear Cooperation has signed an agreement with Pakistan for two new nuclear reactors at the Chashma site - Chashma III and Chashma IV.

The move is in clear violation of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) guidelines that forbid nuclear transfers to countries who have not signed on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or who do not adhere to comprehensive international safeguards on their nuclear program.

Ever since the US decided to conclude a civilian nuclear energy cooperation pact with India, China has indicated its displeasure through various means. With the exception of China, all other major global powers (the UK, France, Germany and Russia) have supported the US-India nuclear deal: They were eager to sell nuclear fuel, reactors and equipment to India. China, however, has requested that India sign the NPT and dismantle its nuclear weapons, saying that the US-India deal would “set a bad example for other countries.”

Indeed, the US-India deal is in many ways a recognition of India’s rising global profile, which necessarily irks China. In response, Beijing quickly declared that it would seek to sell nuclear reactors to Pakistan. If Washington is going to play favourites, then Beijing will follow suit.

Pakistan had also demanded a similar agreement with the US, but the Bush administration had made clear that given Pakistan’s abysmal nuclear proliferation record - exemplified by the Abdul Qadeer Khan network – this would not happen.

When Islamabad reiterated its demand recently in its ministerial-level ‘Strategic Dialogue’ with the Obama administration, it was again turned down.

Still, a number of voices in Washington policy circles have a made a case for a civilian nuclear pact with Pakistan, especially as Islamabad’s support remains crucial to winning the war in Afghanistan. US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson reportedly suggested that the US was “beginning to have a discussion with the Pakistan government” on the country’s desire to tap nuclear energy. And there are indications now that the Obama administration is likely to accept China’s nuclear commerce with Pakistan in return for the former’s help in containing Iranian nuclear ambitions.

China shares a special relationship with Pakistan. Based on their convergent interests vis-à-vis India, China and Pakistan reached a strategic understanding in mid-1950s, a bond that has continued to strengthen. Sino-Pakistan ties gained particular momentum in aftermath of the 1962 Sino-Indian war when the two states signed a boundary agreement recognizing Chinese control over portions of disputed Kashmir. Since then, Chinese President Hu Jintao has gone as far as to describe the relationship as “higher than mountains and deeper than oceans.”

Maintaining close ties with China has been a priority for Islamabad, and Beijing has provided extensive economic, military and technical assistance to Pakistan over the years. The Pakistani nuclear weapons program is essentially an extension of the Chinese one.

China’s crucial role in the development of Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructure is well documented. Although China has long denied helping any nation attain nuclear capability, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, AQ Khan, himself has acknowledged the crucial role China played in his nation’s nuclear weaponization by gifting 50 kilograms of weapons-grade enriched uranium, nuclear weapons blueprints and tons of uranium hexafluoride for Pakistan’s centrifuges. This is perhaps the only case in which a nuclear weapon state has actually passed on weapons grade fissile material as well as a bomb design to a non-nuclear weapon state. Sino-Pakistan nuclear collusion has continued despite the fact that China is an NPT signatory.

China continues to view Pakistan as an important asset in countering India. While the Bush administration’s steadfast support for India prevented Beijing from pursuing a civil nuclear partnership with Islamabad, now Beijing feels it has greater room to manoeuvre.

The Sino-Pakistan nuclear relationship has been the single most important factor in wrecking the foundations of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. After all, it was because of China’s nuclear program that India initiated its own nuclear program, and Sino-Pakistan nuclear and missile duopoly in the 1990s forced India to go overtly nuclear in 1998. China’s latest decision to export nuclear power plants to Pakistan and US acquiescence is another reminder why the NPT remains a paper tiger.

China Set to Supply Pakistan with Two New Nuclear Reactors | Oil Price.com

[Neo]

Pakistan gets nuclear deal by proxy

May 07, 2010

Pakistan was seeking equal treatment as India [ Images ], but it may have turned out to be more equal in the bargain, says T P Sreenivasan.

The signals from Washington in the last two months were clearly in favour of civilian nuclear cooperation with Pakistan after a couple of think-tanks came to the conclusion that the imbalance in South Asia, created by the India-US nuclear deal, should be rectified.

Scholars like Professor Steve Cohen of the Brookings Institution in Washington openly favoured it, even though he thought that it would not happen. Even as the Obama [ Images ] administration kept denying it, Hillary Clinton [ Images ] hinted at a parallel approach to India and Pakistan on nuclear matters. The contours of a new nuclear landscape have emerged with the announcement that China will build two nuclear reactors in Pakistan to restore the nuclear balance in South Asia.

China confirmed on April 29, 2010 that Chinese and Pakistani officials have signed an agreement to finance the construction of two nuclear reactors to be built in Pakistan by Chinese firms. China has also claimed that the deal is in conformity with the international standards set by the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, recalling that China and Pakistan had begun cooperation in civil nuclear projects in 2004, before China joined the Nuclear Supplier Group, NSG. The reactors proposed to be built in Pakistan by China will have a capacity of 300 MWS each and four more similar reactors are supposed to be in the pipeline.

The curious thing about the deal is that the Non-proliferation ayatollahs in the US have reacted calmly to the news. Former US congresswoman Ellen Taucher, the new nonproliferation czar of the Obama administration's reaction was timid. 'These things take a long time. So I am going to wait and see,' she said. At best, she is accepting the inevitable, at worst; she is revealing complicity in the deal, which has been seen in Washington as a necessary evil.

If Washington was going to face the flak at the NPT Review Conference this month in New York on account of the India deal, it might as well take Pakistan and China on its side against the onslaught of the non-Nuclear Weapons States.

China had insisted, throughout the long debate on the India-US nuclear deal that any exception given to India should be on the basis of criteria and not discriminatory. When it finally acquiesced in the NSG waiver for India, China had made up its mind either to persuade the US to give a similar deal to Pakistan or to take law into its own hands and present to the world a fait accompli. China has done better by securing the understanding of the US before announcing the deal with Pakistan.

The details of the Pakistan-China deal are far from clear, but the stringent conditions India has accepted in its deal with the US seem to be absent in the instant case. Pakistan has neither agreed to throw open its nuclear reactors to IAEA inspections, nor has reached any agreement with the IAEA on safeguards, including the Additional Protocol, permitting intrusive inspections, which India has accepted. Perhaps, these conditions may come up when the matter is brought up at the NSG.

But given the US position, the NSG may, at best, impose the same conditions as in the Indian case. But in the case of China, the transparent process in the US Congress and elsewhere will be absent and Pakistan is likely to sail through the NSG, with conditions similar to those implicit in the India waiver.

Interestingly, China does not seem to have claimed exemption under the 'grandfather clause' for the supply by arguing that the present deal was part of the 1985 agreement, which led to the construction of two reactors in Pakistan. The argument clearly is that the deal is necessary to restore the nuclear balance in South Asia, a right China arrogates to itself with the acceptance of the US.

China has accepted the Pakistani contention that India will be able to strengthen its weapons capability by devoting its entire production of fissile material for arms, while securing enough supplies of uranium from abroad for peaceful uses.

Apart from the current mood in Washington to appease Pakistan in the context of its Afpak policy, there are two reasons why the US will not object to the Pakistan-China deal at the NSG or elsewhere. It needs China's support immediately to impose sanctions against Iran and China may well have extracted its price for an abstention on the Iran sanctions resolution in the Security Council. Contrary to the provisions of the UN Charter, an abstention by a permanent member has come to be considered as assent.

Secondly, Pakistan has been blocking the negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament (CD) on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), much to the chagrin of a majority of member States. China may well have insisted that Pakistan should let the FMCT negotiations go forward, now that Pakistan had the facility of importing reactors without signing the NPT.

This clean operation of a deal by proxy leaves India in a quandary. The prime minister has already hinted that India would have no objection if Pakistan was allowed to have civil nuclear trade. We would find it delicate to object to the Pakistan-China deal if it happens to have the same conditions that India accepted. Since the US has not given a deal to Pakistan, its earlier objections on the basis of Pakistan's track record have been overcome.

While India is waiting for the nuclear liability bill and the necessary internal procedures in the US to begin nuclear trade with the US, Pakistan may well have two nuclear reactors constructed on its own soil. Pakistan will not have to find the money to pay either as the Pakistan-China agreement speaks of 'financing' the construction of the reactors. Pakistan was seeking equal treatment as India, but it may have turned out to be more equal in the bargain.

Pakistan gets nuclear deal by proxy: Rediff.com India News

[Neo]

China on verge of signing nuke deal with Pakistan: Expert

IANS, Jun 14, 2010

NEW DELHI: China is on the verge of unveiling a nuclear deal with Pakistan that will, in effect, be "cocking a snook" at the world as it will be outside the purview of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a noted security expert said on Monday.

After the exception the NSG accorded to India in 2008 to enable the implementation of its civilian nuclear pact with the US, Pakistan had sought a similar deal from Washington and after having been turned down, "it now appears that China will soon announce its deal with Pakistan to export two nuclear reactors", Commodore (retd) C. Uday Bhaskar, director of think tank National Maritime Foundation (NMF), said.

"This will be without NSG concurrence and despite the many misgivings about Pakistan's track record, its linkages to terror and radical ideologies," he said while addressing a seminar here on "Nuclear Arsenals post-2010", organised by the Indian Navy-funded NMF.

"One can infer that this is the equivalent of China announcing its own autonomy in the WMD (weapons of mass destruction) domain and that the US is no longer the determining factor in matters nuclear," Bhaskar contended.

"In effect, this would mean that China is cocking a snook at the NSG, the US and the rest of the world," he added.

Tracing Pakistan's missile and nuclear acquisitions and the upcoming deal with China, he said these had "many grave implications" for the region - and particularly India.

"Tracking Pakistan's nuclear acquisitions, it is evident that Pakistan, which began with an enriched uranium weapon, is now moving toward the plutonium option. This switch has many grave implications for the region - and India in particular.

"This is primarily due to the distinctive status Pakistan has apropos its nuclear weapon: It is the only country where the army has its finger on the button, the current civilian leadership notwithstanding," Bhaskar maintained.

He also noted that Pakistan was the only state "to use the nuclear weapon to enhance its strategic space for pursuing a revisionist agenda that invests in religious radicalism and supports terrorism".

"China is cognisant of this pattern and has yet chosen to continue its support to Pakistan's nuclear programme," Bhaskar contended.

In this context, he noted that though the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) had come into being in 1970, "concurrently, the world spawned a very complex nuclear eco-system often shrouded and deliberately muddied, with a disconnect between rhetoric and reality. States, state representatives and opaque activities led to selective proliferation and spread".

"One such WMD domain was the one spawned by China, of which the Sino-Pakistan one is the better known, with linkages extending from North Korea to Saudi Arabia," Bhaskar pointed out.

China on verge of signing nuke deal with Pakistan: Expert - China - World - The Times of India

[Neo]

US wants China to clarify Pakistan atomic reactor deal

WASHINGTON — The United States said Tuesday it had sought clarification from China on the sale of two civilian nuclear reactors to Pakistan, saying the deal must be approved by the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

"We've asked China to clarify the details of its sale of additional nuclear reactors to Pakistan," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters.

The Financial Times reported in April that Chinese companies will build at least two new 650-megawatt reactors at Chashma in Punjab province.

"This appears to extend beyond cooperation that was grand-fathered when China was approved for membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)," Crowley added.

"We believe that such cooperation would require specific exemption approved by consensus of the NSG, as was done for India."

The 45-member NSG, which controls the export and sale of nuclear technology worldwide, has granted a waiver for India, a nuclear weapons state that has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

In April, an expert quoted by The Financial Times said China likely felt emboldened to go ahead with the deal after the United States signed a civilian nuclear agreement with Pakistan's arch-rival India in 2008.

The agreement facilitated nuclear cooperation between the world's two biggest democracies despite India's refusal to sign the NPT.

AFP: US wants China to clarify Pakistan atomic reactor deal

[Neo]

US to object to China-Pakistan nuclear deal

Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN, Jun 15, 2010

WASHINGTON: The Obama administration will raise a red flag to a proposed nuclear deal between China and Pakistan, contending that Beijing will be violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that forbids export of nuclear reactors to countries that have not signed the pact if it goes ahead with the deal.

The US objection will come next week at a meeting in New Zealand of the 46-member Nuclear Suppliers Group, whose clearance is typically needed for such transactions. China has maintained that its agreement with Pakistan to supply two additional nuclear reactors pre-dates its joining the NSG in 2004 and therefore does not need its approval.

But Washington insists that the two additional reactors will require the consensus approval of the NSG, which the multilateral body is disinclined to give as it did in the case of India’s deal with the United States and other countries.

"Additional nuclear cooperation with Pakistan beyond those specific projects that were grandfathered in 2004 would require consensus approval" by the NSG, an unnamed U.S. official was quoted as telling the U.S media on Monday, adding that that such an approval is ''extremely unlikely."

China and Pakistan have tried to push through the deal for two additional reactors following the U.S-India nuclear deal, suggesting what is good for New Delhi must stand good for Islamabad too. But both countries – Pakistan in particular -- lack the international support that India got because of their dubious record of nuclear proliferation.

State Department spokesman Gordon DuGuid said the US government "has reiterated to the Chinese government that the United States expects Beijing to cooperate with Pakistan in ways consistent with Chinese non-proliferation obligations."

The US decision to oppose the deal, after initial indications that it would let it pass, comes amid growing disquiet in Washington over Pakistan’s slide into an extremist stance, some of which appears to approved by its new civilian government as a matter of state policy, and its continued belligerence in the region.

A recent report by Harvard scholar Matt Waldman revealed that Pakistan’s Intelligence agency ISI, with the approval of the government, ''provides huge support in terms of training, funding, munitions, and supplies to terrorist groups.'' In effect, this would suggest the US is indirectly bankrolling Taliban to kill Nato and American soldiers and attack their supply lines in the Af-Pak region, since Pakistan subsists largely on American dole.

The initial reading in Washington about the China-Pak nuke deal was that the Obama administration would acquiesce to it to help soften Beijing’s position on other issues at stake in the US–China relationship, e.g., the Iranian and North Korean nuclear threats, currency revaluation, and other important concerns.

But experts warned as early as May this year that ''there is no real reason to think that the Administration’s silence on the deal will bring more Chinese cooperation on other issues.''

''Given the widespread proliferation that resulted from the Pakistan-based A. Q. Khan network—as well as continued concerns about the existence of terrorist networks in Pakistan that seek access to nuclear weapons technology—a nod from Washington to further Chinese–Pakistani nuclear cooperation is shortsighted,'' cautioned Lisa Curtis and Nicholas Hamisevicz of the Heritage Foundation.

''The argument that the China–Pakistan nuclear reactor deal should be seen in the same light as the US–India civil nuclear deal discounts the vastly different proliferation records of Pakistan and India, the different oversight requirements generally imposed by the US compared to China, and the prevalence of Pakistan-based terrorist groups seeking nuclear weapons technology,'' they added.

The Obama administration evidently heeded the argument and has had a change of heart; hence the red flag in New Zealand. Whether China, which many experts believe has a record of proliferating at will and getting away with it, falls in line is to be seen.

US to object to China-Pakistan nuclear deal - Pakistan - World - The Times of India