China is building two advanced nuclear reactors with Russian assistance that will produce plutonium for Beijing’s rapid buildup of nuclear weapons, according to a new Air Force think tank study.
The two fast neutron reactors under construction are located on an island off the coast of China’s Fujian Province opposite Taiwan. One reactor under construction since 2017 reportedly was set to begin producing electricity late last year and the second is set to go online in 2026, the analysis said.
Both reactors will produce plutonium that “could be used to produce weapon-grade plutonium for China’s rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal,” the report by the Air Force’s China Aerospace Studies Institute states.
Suspicions that the reactors are part of China’s rapidly expanding nuclear weapons program were raised the same year that construction on the first reactor began. In 2017, China stopped reporting its plutonium stockpiles to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. watchdog agency.
Russia’s Rosatom nuclear agency delivered 6.5 tons of uranium to the China National Nuclear Corp. for the Fujian reactor, Bloomberg News reported in February.
A month later, John F. Plumb, assistant U.S. defense secretary for space policy, told a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing that increasing Sino-Russian nuclear cooperation is helping Beijing build new warheads.
“It’s very troubling to see Russia and China cooperating on this,” Mr. Plumb said of the uranium transfers. “But there’s no getting around the fact that breeder reactors are for plutonium, and plutonium is for weapons.”
The Air Force think tank report reports that China’s rapidly expanding warhead arsenal could reach 1,270 warheads by 2030, based on the plutonium production capabilities of its faster neutron reactor.
The Pentagon’s own most recent annual report on the Chinese military concluded that China “probably will use its new fast breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities to produce plutonium for its nuclear weapons program, despite publicly maintaining these technologies are intended for peaceful purposes.”
The 45-page CASI report, produced by a contractor, said Chinese-Russia nuclear cooperation is expanding following an agreement signed in March on closer cooperation. According to the study, the new reactors were developed by the China National Nuclear Corp., with Russian assistance.
The Russian firm OKBM Afrikantov reportedly supplied key equipment for reactor operations and for handling nuclear fuel, calculation codes for safety systems, and services and technical support. Russian experts also helped train Chinese personnel, the report said.
Test equipment and fuel for the reactor was supplied by Russia’s Mashinostroitelny Zavod (MSZ), a subsidiary of the Rosatom nuclear fuel company, TVEL.
“Besides simply supplying electricity, the reactor is intended to demonstrate the capability of fast reactors to serve as breeder reactors, i.e. reactors that produce plutonium,” the report said.
The Chinese nuclear power plant on the island of Xiapu will be the first nuclear power plant outside Russia with a large-capacity fast neutron reactor, the report said.
Fast neutron reactors, also called faster reactors, are a type of reactor in which the fission chain reaction is sustained by fast neutrons. An alternate type of reactor known as a thermal neutron reactor uses slow thermal neutrons.
“Fast reactors are lousy at making economical electricity, but they’re terrific for producing super weapons-grade plutonium,” said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.
A report on China’s nuclear weapons by the Union of Concerned Scientists published earlier this month stated that China’s nuclear weapons modernization has both accelerated and expanded in recent years.
The report stated that China likely will acquire significant stocks of plutonium by using the civilian CFR-600 reactors at Xiapu.
Satellite imagery from October 2023 revealed that the first reaction is operational based on steam seen rising from the cooling tower, the report said.
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.
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