Missiles ready; China turns to nuclear power

Press, 2 April 1980, Page 24

Missiles ready; China turns to nuclear power

By

DENNIS BLOODWORTH

in Singapore

A sudden demand for a Government project , to. build a string of atomic power stations across China may mean that Peking’s missile programme has moved into top gear. , Three years ago, when the visit of a team of 1 Chinese nuclear experts to Australia stimulated speculation that China wanted to buy uranium for light-water reactors, a senior Chinese otticial said categorically that his country could not afford such a luxury. . He said China might still be short of mined uranium, but was far shorter of nuclear scientists and technicians. Those the country had were headed for vital research ‘and top priority, military projects. Foreign atomic experts in Hong Kong, who believed .the “military projects already included work on tactical missiles, also said the ■ Chinese did not have techinologists to run nuclear P 1 The military projects kept, their priority, and by last ■. year the Chinese had reportedly perfected a family of four strategic rockets. Last month they tested the thjrd of the series, an mtercontinental ballistic missile (1.C.8.M.) with an estimated range of 5000 km. But their--latest, pride;is .the CSSX4. which . ' ranee of 9000 km. This giant • could put a satellite into J space, hit anything any- ' where in the U.S.S.R., and Stake out targets in Europe and the United States. The

Chinese are said to be planning to deploy it next year. • They have come a long way fast, having launched eight satellites, and put a dog in a rocket as part of a manned spaceflight programme for which astronauts are in training.

But the country that exploded its first atomic device in 1964 still has no experience of power stations. In 1978, the Vice-Premier, Mr Deng Xiaoping, announced that Peking had ordered two 900-megawatt plants from France. The order was cancelled after the radiation scare at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania a vear ago. By February this year, however. China’s scientists had decided nuclear power plants were safe, reliable and economical • — “environmental pollution is small compared with that of coal and oil-fired power stations” — and China had

ample deposits of uranium. The founding congress of the Chinese Nuclear Society unanimouslv endorsed appeals from its leaders for a nuclear plant construction programme — built by Chinese. with or without expertise, equipment or materials from abroad. China now had the necessary personnel and practical experience, “if foreignerswill not-give us the technology, then we can plan and construct nuclear power stations relying entirely on our own capabilities,” said a Vice-Minister, Mr Jiang.

Shengjie, a distinguished nu? clear scientist.

The “People’s Daily” has soberly reminded the overexuberant that China must nevertheless rely on oil and coal, and hydro-electric systems, as its main sources of energy for a long time. China’s oil output reached 104 million tonnes in 1978, but oil is still in short supply, and the Government has called for an end to “serious wastage.” Oil exports buy much of the foreign technology and equipment needed to carry China into the twenty-first century. China’s industrial plants are so starved of electricity that one machine in five is silent. Seventy per cent of the country’s hydro-electric potential lies in the southwest, 60 per cent of its 600 billion tonnes of coal are in north China, and the national road and rail systems are two of the weakest links in the whole gangling economy. A nuclear power station can run for a year on a trainload of fuel. So China may go nuclear. Does this mean they may cut back on “military projects”? It is far more likely to mean that they can now afford the luxury of a civilian atomic programme because their strategic programme is no longer hobbled b' lack of technologists. Faced with a gigantic neighbour whom they daily accuse of plotting the conquest of the world, they are in no mood to put wattage before warheads. Copyright, London Observer Service. ,