China’s imports of Russian uranium spark fear of new arms race: Report

New Delhi: Russian nuclear fuel deliveries to a new Chinese reactor have raised US concerns about the Beijing’s potential to produce weapons-grade plutonium, according to a report. According to Bloomberg, Russian engineers were shipping a big quantity of nuclear fuel to a remote island roughly 220 kilometres (124 miles) off Taiwan’s northern shore on the same day in December when Chinese and American negotiators claimed to have held productive discussions to ease military tensions. China’s so-called fast-breeder reactor on Changbiao Island is one of the world’s most closely-watched nuclear installations. According to the report, US intelligence experts expect the CFR-600 to start producing weapons-grade plutonium this year, which may enable Beijing to quadruple its stockpile of warheads over the course of the following 12 years. In doing so, China would be able to equal the nuclear arsenals that the US and Russia now have in place. The CFR-600 is a sodium-cooled pool-type fast-neutron nuclear reactor under construction in Xiapu County, Fujian province, China, on Changbiao Island. “It is entirely possible that this breeder program is purely civilian,” Bloomberg report quoted Pavel Podvig, a Geneva-based nuclear analyst with the United Nations’s Institute for Disarmament Research, as saying. “One thing that makes me nervous is that China stopped reporting its civilian and separated plutonium stockpiles. It’s not a smoking gun but it’s definitely not a good sign,” Podvig added. China’s burgeoning capacity to expand its atomic weaponry comes as the last remaining treaty limiting the strategic stockpiles of the US and Russia is on the verge of collapse amid spiraling confrontation over the war in Ukraine.

In a 30 December videoconference, Putin told Chinese President Xi Jinping that defence and military technology cooperation “has a special place” in their relations. “Clearly, China is benefiting from Russian support,” said Hanna Notte, a German arms-control expert, told Bloomberg. The risk for Beijing is the US may expand its own stockpile in response to China’s build-up as well as the Kremlin’s abrogation of arms-control treaties and “the discrepancy will just grow again,” she said. US raises alarm US Department of Defense officials have repeatedly raised alarm over China’s nuclear-weapons ambitions since issuing a 2021 report to Congress. Military planners assess that the CFR-600 is poised to play a critical role in raising China’s stockpile of warheads to 1,500 by 2035 from an estimated 400 today. Pentagon officials say Russian state-owned Rosatom Corp.’s 12 December supply of 6,477 kilograms (14,279 pounds) of uranium is fueling an atomic program that could destabilize Asia’s military balance, where there are growing tensions over Taiwan and control of the South China Sea. China possesses few means to increase its plutonium stockpile for nuclear weapons after its original production program closed down in the 1990s, experts say. China, however, rejects the US’s concerns. The Foreign Ministry in Beijing said China “strictly fulfilled its nuclear non-proliferation obligations” and voluntarily submitted “part of civil nuclear activities” to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Defense Ministry spokesman Tan Kefei said in a 23 February briefing the US repeatedly hyped up the “China nuclear threat” as an excuse to expand its own strategic arsenal, while China maintained a defensive policy that includes no first-use of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear arms treaty formally suspended

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a bill formally suspending the last remaining nuclear arms treaty with the United States.

Putin had declared a week ago in his state-of-the-nation address that Moscow was suspending its participation in the 2010 New START treaty. He had charged that Russia can’t accept US inspections of its nuclear sites under the pact at a time when Washington and its NATO allies have openly declared Russia’s defeat in Ukraine as their goal.

Both houses of parliament quickly ratified Putin’s bill on the pact’s suspension last week. On Tuesday, Putin signed it into law, effective immediately. The document says that it’s up to the president to decide whether Moscow could return to the pact.

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