Bucking Trend on Nuclear Power : Asians Still Devoted To the Peaceful Atom
International Herald Tribune
January 12, 1996
Michael Richardson

Amid concerns about possible military uses, Asian countries are showing no aversion to using nuclear power for electricity and scientific research.

While many countries in Europe and North America are reducing reliance on nuclear power plants because of public anxiety over their safety, China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and India plan to expand their already substantial nuclear power programs.

Other Asian states, including Indonesia, Pakistan, Vietnam and Bangladesh, have announced plans to launch programs or enlarge existing small ones.

Of the 48 nuclear power plants under construction in the world, 17 are in Asia, according to figures compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

Japan, which relies on nuclear plants for 33 percent of its power, plans to raise that share to 42 percent by 2010.

China has said it will increase its nuclear capacity tenfold to 20,000 megawatts by 2020 by building eight large generators at four sites. They include Ling Ao in southern Guangdong Province, near Hong Kong, where French firms will start work on two 985-megawatt units in mid-1996 under a contract worth about $1.9 billion

Ronald E. Hagen, an energy specialist at the East-West Center in Hawaii, said that many Asian countries, in the midst of rapid industrialization, saw nuclear power as a way of meeting growing demand for electricity and reducing dependence on imported oil and gas even though it was "very controversial because of concerns over safety and weapons proliferation."

Evidently referring to North Korea, India and Pakistan, he said that some Asian states developing nuclear-based electricity were also trying to build nuclear weapons.

Reflecting concerns about a possible nuclear arms race in Asia, Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad of Malaysia said this week that the region "more than any other needs to implement the provisions of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty more vigorously."

He noted that three of the five declared nuclear-weapon states — China, Russia and the United States — were Pacific powers, while a fourth — France — was now testing its weapons in the South Pacific.

The fifth French test in an expected total of six or seven before the end of February took place late last month. China also conducts nuclear arms tests, despite strong regional opposition.

"Nuclear power has not been a major source of fuel for weapons programs," Mr. Hagen said. "Instead, weapons fuel has mostly come from 'research' reactors, which most countries that have nuclear power programs also possess or want."

Countries suspected of trying to make nuclear weapons may allow international inspection of their nuclear power plants, as North Korea has done, but not their research reactors. India and Pakistan do not allow outside inspection of either.

Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh have agreed to all inspections. China has signed the nonproliferation treaty but puts off limits military reactors used to make plutonium for weapons production. Other declared nuclear powers follow the same policy.

However, a Western nuclear expert said that even when they are covered by international safeguards against military uses, civilian nuclear power plants and research reactors let countries develop some of the basic skills and technologies used for producing weapons.

In an effort to ensure that clandestine production does not occur in Southeast Asia, leaders of all 10 countries in the region last month signed a treaty banning nuclear weapons from the region and placing all their nuclear facilities under international inspection.

However, some Japanese officials and experts argue that Asian nations should go further and form a region-wide organization similar to Euratom, the European Atomic Energy Community, which both regulates and promotes peaceful nuclear programs in many states in Europe.

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