Chinese companies this month quietly signed a contract to cooperate in building two nuclear reactors at Pakistan’s Chashma atomic complex, advancing a controversial project that has worried Washington and India.
The China Nuclear Industry Fifth Construction Company and the CNNC China Zhongyuan Engineering Corp, which specializes in foreign nuclear projects, agreed to work together on the third and fourth plants at the Chashma complex, according to a Chinese-language announcement on the Web site of the construction company (www.cnfc.net.cn).
The deal, signed in Shanghai on June 8, confirmed that long-running plans about Chinese help in expanding Chashma are moving forward, despite misgivings in the region and beyond about security and proliferation risks in troubled Pakistan.
A Pakistani government official said there was nothing new in the agreement and that it was part of an ongoing cooperation with China in the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
COOPERATION
“China has long been cooperating with Pakistan for the use of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and this cooperation is continuing,” the official said.
The pressurized water reactors are “a major cooperative project between China and Pakistan that both governments treat as highly important,” said the company announcement dated the same day as the signing, which received almost no domestic media attention at the time.
The project will “bring Chinese nuclear energy to the world and is significant for once again bearing firm fruit for Sino-Pakistani friendship,” the company statement said.
It did not give any details about the timing and cost of the project. The companies have worked on earlier reactors at Chashma.
Mounting signs that China will proceed with the reactor project in Punjab province have stirred international misgivings, especially in neighboring India and the US. The US said this month it wanted clarification from China on the proposed plants, which have been under planning and deepening negotiation for years.
WEAPONS
Pakistan and India are wary rivals, and both possess nuclear weapons and stay outside the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Islamabad has looked to Beijing to counter to Indian influence.
Pakistan also faces severe power shortages. China says its nuclear cooperation with Pakistan is purely peaceful and follows international safeguards.
The proposed nuclear deal may be discussed this week by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a body of 46 governments that seek to control access to their nuclear fuel and reactor technology to prevent the spread of atomic weapons.
China and the US are among the NSG members, who will meet in New Zealand.
MISGIVINGS
In 2008, China allowed a nuclear energy agreement between Washington and Delhi to win NSG approval, despite misgivings in Beijing, long a rival of India, and criticism from other capitals that the deal eroded nuclear non-proliferation rules.
China has said that the two proposed reactors “form part of an earlier agreement with Pakistan that predated its NSG membership, thereby denying that the sale would violate NSG guidelines,” said Lora Saalman, an associate in Beijing with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who studies nuclear diplomacy between emerging Asian powers China and India.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
RSS