(Bloomberg) —
Most Read from Bloomberg
China is warning that global rules prohibiting the spread of nuclear weapons are at risk because of different non-proliferation standards being applied to Iran and US allies.
The “double standard” means a half-century of efforts to restrict possession of atomic warheads could begin to unravel, potentially pushing countries toward crossing the nuclear threshold, said China’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Wang Qun.
Western nations expect Iran to limit its nuclear-fuel stockpiles in order to revive a 2015 pact and remove sweeping economic sanctions, according to Wang. Meanwhile, the US and UK plan to transfer hundreds of kilograms of highly-enriched uranium to Australia as part of an agreement to sell nuclear submarines, he said.
“In Iran, the fundamental point of the nuclear agreement was to limit the breakout time to a period of one year or longer,” Wang said in an interview, referring to the interval needed to enrich enough nuclear material for a potential weapon.
“Yet in Australia they are talking about providing tons of weapons-grade material to a non-nuclear-weapons state. These exemptions risk collapsing the dam holding back proliferation.”
With Chinese President Xi Jinping poised to meet his Iranian and Russian counterparts this week in Uzbekistan, Beijing is playing a more assertive diplomatic role at forums, including the IAEA. It’s also constructing at least 150 new reactors in the years ahead at a cost of $440 billion, which will catapult it past the US as the world’s largest generator of nuclear power.
US envoy to the IAEA Laura Holgate said China’s linkage of the Iran nuclear agreement with the Australia submarine deal “defies logic.”
“There is no double standard between context of Iran, which has a history of non-compliance in its safeguards obligations, and Australia, which has never been found in non-compliance,” she said by phone.
Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers collapsed four years ago after the Trump administration withdrew the US, prompting Iran to retaliate by ramping up atomic-fuel production. Talks to restore it are again at an impasse.
An IAEA investigation into past Iranian nuclear activity is providing the latest barrier to finalizing a deal that sides previously said is close. Wang cited US domestic politics heading into November’s midterm elections as another complication. If the deal isn’t signed within days, he said, it will probably have to wait until after the polls.
This week, China is using an IAEA meeting to highlight its displeasure with the year-old Aukus pact — a $61 billion deal to eventually deliver 12 conventionally-armed nuclear submarines to Australia. The IAEA’s statutes prohibit “any military” assistance to member states, and Beijing argues safeguards negotiations to enable Aukus violate the rules.
A legal loophole in international non-proliferation agreements lets the IAEA exempt inspections of weapons-grade uranium used to power vessels while at sea, provided the material can later be accounted for. Iran has suggested it too could produced highly-enriched uranium for nuclear submarines.
Unlike Iran, Australia needs the submarine fuel precisely because it hasn’t built the industrial capacity to enrich uranium, said Holgate, adding that limiting the spread of that technology — key to fueling reactors or bombs — is at the core of nuclear non-proliferation.
But China sees it differently, suggesting in a diplomatic note this week that “indigenous development” of the weapons-grade fuel that submarines need would have been within its rights.
The problem “under Aukus is it’s the very first time in history, that two nuclear weapons states, blatantly, directly and illegally transfer tons and tons of nuclear weapon materials to a non-nuclear-weapons state,” it noted.
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.
