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Statement of Opposition to Uranium Sales to China and India

Endorsed by:
Friends of the Earth, Australia
Australian Conservation Foundation
Greenpeace Australia Pacific
Medical Association for the Prevention of War
Public Health Association of Australia
Queensland Conservation Council
Environment Centre of the Northern Territory
Arids Lands Environment Centre (Alice Springs)

(Contact: Dr. Jim Green, Friends of the Earth, 0417 318368, <[email protected]>.)

March 31, 2006.

Nuclear power is the only energy source with a direct and repeatedly demonstrated connection to the production of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Four or five countries have used supposedly peaceful nuclear programs to develop arsenals of nuclear weapons - Israel, India, Pakistan, South Africa, and possibly North Korea. The five 'declared' nuclear weapons states  - the US, the UK, Russia, France, and China - routinely transfer personnel from their 'peaceful' nuclear programs to their WMD programs.

The contribution of ostensibly peaceful nuclear programs to WMD programs has underpinned strong and sustained public opposition to uranium mining and export in Australia:
* A Morgan Poll of 662 Australians in October 2005 found that support for uranium mining was at its lowest level since 1979, and that 70% of Australians oppose the establishment of any more uranium mines with just 23% in favour.
* A survey of 1020 Australians carried out last year by the International Atomic Energy Agency found that 56% considered the Agency's 'safeguards' inspection system to be ineffective.

The Australian Government's uranium export negotiations with the Chinese regime runs counter to this broad public opposition to an expansion of the uranium mining and export industry, and it also runs counter to the September 2005 SBS-commissioned Newspoll of 1200 Australians which found that 53% were opposed to uranium exports to China, with just 31% in favour.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has not categorically ruled out allowing uranium exports to India, which is not even a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

We call on the Australian Government to rule out uranium exports to China and India for the following reasons:

LIMITATIONS OF 'SAFEGUARDS'.

Inadequate IAEA Safeguards. The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) inspection program is chronically under-resourced, so it is highly unlikely that inspections would be sufficiently numerous or rigorous to provide confidence, let alone certainty, that Australian uranium was not being diverted to weapons production in China or India. IAEA Director-General Mohamed El Baradei described the inspection regime as "fairly limited" in a February 2005 speech.

As a nuclear weapons state, China is not subject to full-scope International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards and it is highly unlikely that a safeguards agreement with India would be more rigorous. Nuclear facilities using Australian uranium would only be subject to voluntary inspections, but even this is no simple matter since Australian uranium is indistinguishable from, and mixed with, uranium from elsewhere.

Australia's Meaningless Bilateral Agreements. Provisions in bilateral uranium export agreements between Australia and uranium customer countries have been gradually and repeatedly weakened since the basic framework was established in 1977 by the Fraser government. The provisions certainly do not guarantee that there will be no diversion of nuclear materials to WMD production. The provisions are in some cases meaningless. For example, Australian consent is required before reprocessing spent nuclear fuel produced using Australian uranium. But consent to reprocess has never once been withheld by any Australian government — even when it leads to the stockpiling of plutonium and the consequent regional tensions, as with Japan's enormous plutonium stockpile.

Nuclear technology is inherently dual use across so called 'civilian' nuclear power and nuclear weapons capabilities. Australia should rule out any new bilateral agreements for use of our uranium in uranium enrichment programs around the world, including in China or in India. Australia should not allow any of our exported uranium to be used by any country in the plutonium cycle, including reprocessing, MOX nuclear fuel, and breeder and proposed ‘Generation 4' nuclear reactors that produce and rely on plutonium.

CHINA — A SECRETIVE, REPRESSIVE STATE WITH ACTIVE WMD PROGRAMS.

China's Nuclear Weapons Program. China's Communist regime maintains an active nuclear weapons program and refuses to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The 2002 US Nuclear Posture Review refers to China's "ongoing modernization of its nuclear and non nuclear forces". Last year, Zhu Chenghu, a general in the Chinese People's Liberation Army, said: "If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition onto the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons. We Chinese will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all the cities east of Xian. Of course, the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese."

China's WMD Exports. The Chinese regime has a worrying record of military exports. In 2001, the CIA reported that China had provided missile technology to North Korea and Libya as well as "extensive support" to Pakistan's nuclear program. In 2003, the US government imposed trade bans on five Chinese firms for selling weapons technology to Iran.

Regional Tensions in North-East Asia. The Chinese regime promises military action in the event that Taiwan declares independence, and Washington promises a military reaction in which Australia could become embroiled. In those circumstances, it would be all but impossible to prevent Australian uranium (and by-products such as plutonium produced in power reactors) being used in Chinese nuclear weapons.

Uranium Displacement. China has insufficient uranium for both its civil and military nuclear programs, as the Chinese ambassador to Australia acknowledged in a December 2005 speech. Australian uranium sales would free up China's limited domestic reserves for the production of Weapons of Mass Destruction. As the Taipei Times editorialised on January 21, 2006: "Whether or not Aussie uranium goes directly into Chinese warheads — or whether it is used in power stations in lieu of uranium that goes into Chinese warheads — makes little difference. Canberra is about to do a deal with a regime with a record of flouting international conventions."

Human rights violations. China is not a signatory to many international human rights and labour protection conventions and treaties. According to Amnesty International, the Chinese regime is responsible for five out of every six executions carried out around the world. At least 2,468 executions were carried out in 2001 alone. Civil society safeguards such as whistleblower protection are absent. There are examples of persecution of nuclear industry whistleblowers, such as Sun Xiaodi, who was concerned about environmental contamination at a uranium mine in north-west China and was abducted in April 2005 immediately after speaking to a foreign journalist.

Media Censorship. The Chinese regime continues to tightly control the media. Of the 167 countries surveyed by Reporters Without Borders in 2005, China ranked 159th for press freedom, and China is the world's largest prison for journalists. If diversion of Australian uranium to China's WMD program took place, it is highly unlikely that the media would be able to uncover and report on the diversion.

Adverse Precedent. Uranium sales to China would set a poor precedent. Would Australia then sell uranium to all repressive, secretive, military states, or just some, or just China? Negotiations over uranium sales to China have already been used to justify proposed sales to India, and proposals to sell to India have led to suggestions that uranium might also be sold to other countries which have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), namely Pakistan and Israel.

Public Safety & Environmental Concerns. There are other serious concerns in addition to the potential use of Australian uranium in Chinese nuclear weapons. Wang Yi, a nuclear energy expert at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, told the New York Times in January last year: "We don't have a very good plan for dealing with spent fuel, and we don't have very good emergency plans for dealing with catastrophe."

INDIA — A ROGUE NUCLEAR WEAPONS STATE.

Non-signatory to the NPT. Proposed uranium exports to India must be rejected because India is a nuclear weapons state and is one of just three nations which has not ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The sales would undoubtedly weaken the international non-proliferation regime and would increase the risk of other countries pulling out of the NPT and developing arsenals of nuclear WMD — and doing so with the expectation that uranium could still be procured. As retired diplomat Professor Richard Broinowski notes: "The sale of Australian uranium to India would not just weaken our non-proliferation credentials — it would also signal to some of our major uranium customers, such as Japan and South Korea, that we do not take too seriously their own adherence to the NPT. They may as a result walk away from the treaty and develop nuclear weapons — against North Korea, China, or perhaps Russia — without necessarily fearing a cut-off of Australian supplies."

Regional tensions. India and Pakistan both tested a series of nuclear weapons in 1998. It is unwise and irresponsible to be supplying WMD feedstock in the form of uranium to the subcontinent given the history of regional tension and the active nuclear weapons programs in India and Pakistan.

Adverse precedent. If Australia sells uranium to India, there will be pressure to sell uranium to other nations which refuse to sign and ratify the NPT, such as Pakistan and Israel.

Uranium Displacement. As with China, India has limited domestic reserves of uranium so in addition to the risk of direct use of Australian uranium in Indian nuclear weapons, there is the risk and the expectation that Australian uranium sales would free up India's limited domestic reserves for the production of nuclear weapons.

CONCLUSION.

The Australian Government should be working to strengthen the fragile international disarmament and non-proliferation regime, not to weaken it. Uranium exports to China or to India would unacceptably add to nuclear risks and to insecurity in our region, and are contrary to any proper exercise of Australia's international responsibilities. Australia should be looking to wind up and not to expand uranium mining and exports.

Media Release 31/3/06

Medical & green groups oppose U sales to China

With Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visiting Australia this Saturday-Tuesday, medical and environmental groups are today releasing a statement opposing uranium exports to China. The statement is endorsed by the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, Friends of the Earth, the Australian Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace Australia Pacific, Public Health Association of Australia, Queensland Conservation Council, Environment Centre of the Northern Territory, and the Arids Lands Environment Centre (Alice Springs). It is posted at: <www.geocities.com/jimgreen3/chinauran.html>,

Associate Professor Tilman Ruff, President of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, the Australian chapter of the Nobel Peace Prize winning International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War, said: "China has been a major supplier of nuclear technology to Pakistan, Iran, North Korea and Libya. In Pakistan, China is believed to have supplied nuclear bomb plans, highly enriched uranium, assisted the construction of an unsafeguarded plutonium production reactor at Khusab and the completion of a plutonium reprocessing facility at Chasma.

"China has a large nuclear weapons and material production complex. There is a close coupling between military and civilian nuclear activities - the China National Nuclear Corporation produces, stores, and controls all fissile material for civilian as well as military applications. The regime has not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty," Assoc. Prof. Ruff said.

Dr. Jim Green from Friends of the Earth said: "It would be naive to believe the federal government's propaganda regarding uranium safeguards. The International Atomic Energy Agency has itself acknowledged that its safeguards inspection system is 'fairly limited' and in need of significant reform."

"Nothing would stand between Australian uranium and Chinese nuclear weapons except the integrity of the Communist regime - a regime which is responsible for five out of six executions carried out around the world, refuses to ratify and abide by a raft of human rights treaties, and persecutes rather than protects whistle-blowers. Perhaps Premier Wen Jiabao could update us on the status of Sun Xiaodi during his visit. Sun Xiaodi was publicly voicing concerns about environmental contamination at a Chinese uranium mine until he was abducted by the Communist regime in April 2005. He has not been heard from since," Dr. Green said.

Uranium exports to China would be a bad risk

Any promises made by China regarding Australian uranium are not to be trusted, says JIM GREEN

Canberra Times, 17/1/06.

A POLL of 1200 Australians last September found that 53 percent were opposed to uranium exports to China, with just 31 percent in favour. Nevertheless, the federal Government is meeting a Chinese delegation in Canberra this week to negotiate a bilateral uranium export agreement.

Some difficult questions arise. What would happen to a whistleblower publicly raising concerns about diversion of materials from China's nuclear power program to its WMD program? Most likely the same fate as befell Sun Xiaodi, who was concerned about environmental contamination at a uranium mine in north-western China. The non-government organisation Human Rights in China reports that Sun Xiaodi was sacked and harassed, and in April 2005, immediately after speaking to a foreign journalist, he was abducted by state authorities and has not been heard from since.

Beijing's record of media censorship is equally deplorable. According to Reporters Without Borders, at least 27 journalists were being held in prison at the start of last year, making China the world's largest prison for journalists. Of the 167 countries surveyed by Reporters Without Borders, China ranked 159th for press freedom.

Uranium sales to China would set a poor precedent. Will we now sell uranium to all repressive, secretive, military states, or just some, or just China?

Clearly we can't rely on whistleblowers or the Chinese media to inform us of any diversion of Australian uranium for nuclear weapons production. We would be completely reliant on the inspection system of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the provisions of the bilateral safeguards agreement being negotiated in Canberra this week.

As a nuclear weapons state, China is not subject to full-scope IAEA safeguards. Facilities using Australian uranium would be subject to inspections, but this is no simple matter since 'our' uranium is indistinguishable from, and mixed with, uranium sourced elsewhere. Further, the IAEA's inspection program is chronically under-resourced, so it is unlikely that inspections would be sufficiently numerous and rigorous to provide confidence - let alone certainty - that Australian uranium was not being diverted.

As for the bilateral agreement being negotiated this week, it will probably contain provisions such as a requirement for Australian consent before uranium is enriched beyond 20 percent uranium-235 (highly enriched uranium can be used in nuclear weapons) and a requirement for consent to reprocess spent fuel produced using Australian uranium.

While these provisions are commendable, they have never once been invoked. No customer country has ever sought permission to enrich beyond 20 percent. More importantly, numerous requests to reprocess spent fuel produced from Australian uranium have been received, but they have never once been rejected, even when this leads to the stockpiling of plutonium.

Given that bilateral agreement provisions have been repeatedly watered down, and some key remaining provisions have never once been invoked, it cannot
truthfully be claimed that Australia’s uranium export safeguards are better than any in the world. That claim will, however, be made repeatedly this week.

As for the argument that China will simply source uranium from elsewhere if we do not supply it, the argument is morally bankrupt. By the same logic, we might just as well be exporting illegal drugs, or profiting from the detention of political prisoners in China.

Freedom of Information documents released last year reveal that Beijing wants to weaken provisions contained in bilateral agreements, though the detail remains unclear.

Does China want a free hand to enrich uranium or to separate plutonium from spent fuel without seeking Australian consent? Currently, China claims that it is not producing fissile material for its weapons program, but there is no independent verification of the claim.

Perhaps Beijing wants the freedom to transfer Australian uranium, and by-products such as spent fuel and plutonium, to other countries without first seeking Australian consent? That also is an alarming scenario. Beijing joined the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2004, and that hopefully represents a lasting change of attitude. But as recently as 2001, the CIA reported that China had provided missile-related items to North Korea and Libya as well as "extensive support" to Pakistan's nuclear program. In 2003, the US government imposed trade bans on five Chinese firms for selling weapons technology to Iran.

It is not difficult to envisage a scenario whereby the IAEA inspection regime and the bilateral agreement would count for nothing - the most obvious being escalating tension over Taiwan. Beijing promises military action in the event that Taipei declares independence, and Washington promises a military reaction in which Australia could become embroiled. The bilateral agreement would not be worth the paper it's written on.

Former diplomat Professor Richard Broinowski has voiced his concern that by exporting uranium to China, we could free up China's limited domestic reserves for military use. Comments made in December by China's ambassador to Australia, Madame Fu Ying, strengthen this concern. The ambassador reportedly told a Melbourne Mining Club luncheon that China has sufficient uranium for its military program but not enough to accommodate both its military and civil requirements.

Dr. Jim Green is a campaigner with the newly-formed Beyond Nuclear Initiative, a collaboration between the Poola Foundation (Tom Kantor Fund), Friends of the Earth and the Australian Conservation Foundation.

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Longer version of above article:
Green Left Weekly, Feb 1, 2006.
<www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/654/654p11.htm>

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Mate, I nuked myself in the foot
Editorial - Taipei Times - Taiwan
Saturday, Jan 21, 2006, Page 8

The Australian newspaper on Wednesday reported that an Australian government source has privately admitted that Canberra cannot prevent Beijing from using uranium bought from Australia in its nuclear arsenal, should the two countries strike a trade deal.

But this minor hitch is not likely to stop sales of uranium to China, because Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) seems to believe, in all seriousness, that China would honor an agreement in which the "use of [Australian uranium] for nuclear weapons, nuclear explosive devices, military nuclear propulsion [or] depleted uranium munitions will be proscribed," as a DFAT spokesperson put it.

Whether or not Aussie uranium goes directly into Chinese warheads -- or whether it is used in power stations in lieu of uranium that goes into Chinese warheads -- makes little difference. Canberra is about to do a deal with a regime with a record of flouting international conventions, notwithstanding the increased oversight that comes with participation in global bodies.

One can almost hear the Australian government's saliva collecting in its mouth at the prospect of selling billions of dollars of uranium from its huge reserves to an eager customer for decades to come.

Never mind that the customer is an unstable Third World despot with a big chip on its shoulder -- and the owner of nuclear warheads and other munitions pointing in potentially inconvenient directions for Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Russia, India and Taiwan, not to mention US bases in the region.

The question that follows is whether Australia can be trusted to do not only the lucrative thing for itself, but also the smart thing for the region when it comes to nuclear non-proliferation. The answer appears to be "no."

We can expect to hear a lot of highfalutin language from Australia in the weeks to come about the need to modernize China and the role "clean" nuclear energy can play in a country desperate for fuel.

Such "global citizen" shtick won't wash. All of this is happening as evidence emerges of tawdry connections between DFAT and the Australian Wheat Board, which is under investigation for feeding massive bribes to Iraqi officials while former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was still in power.

What confidence is there to be had in Canberra now that we know Prime Minister John Howard misled the public about the dangers of non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and lectured on the moral certitude of an invasion, at the same time as people with close government connections -- with possible government knowledge -- were spreading bags of filthy lucre across Baghdad and beyond?

In China's case, Canberra has been setting itself up for a sublime strategic fall for some time, with Washington increasingly concerned that Australia might act in a manner that would compromise regional stability, and US strategy in particular.

Were it not so preoccupied with "homeland security" and the grim situation in Iraq, perhaps Washington could better recognize the folly of its deputy sheriff in Asia profiting handsomely from the potential acceleration of China's nuclear militarization.

"She'll be right, mate," is the cry from an Australian who would seek to soothe the tempers of people around him and shut down an embarrassing conversation.

To which Taiwanese can only reply, "It's not right, and you're not my mate."

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China's money blinds many to danger
February 10, 2006
Sydney Morning Herald
<smh.com.au/news/opinion/chinas-money-blinds-many-to-danger/2006/02/09/1139465796018.html>

It is wrong to trust the regime when it says it will not use Australian uranium for weapons, writes Yu Jie.

FOR the past few years, Western countries have gradually lost their vigilance toward the Chinese Communist Party regime. Western countries investing in China have become the greatest help to the maintenance of the Chinese Communist Party's economic growth.
This is particularly the case with the lopsided development of Shanghai, whose economic bubble is for the most part driven by Western investment.
Western government and business circles are like the ostrich, pretending they cannot see the reality of China's political system, pretending they don't know the appalling human rights catastrophe now happening in China, such as the ruthless persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and the Christians worshipping in household churches - more than 100 million citizens pursuing freedom of belief.
This kind of persecution didn't just happen in the Middle Ages; it's happening in China today.
The Western policy of appeasement is driven by economic interest. In order to sell China Airbuses and high-speed trains, the French President, Jacques Chirac, when he visited China, shamelessly said the Tiananmen incident belongs to the past century and we should let bygones be bygones.
In the greatest rebuke to him, not long after Chirac returned to France, the Chinese communist authorities opened fire on villagers in Dongzhou in Guangdong province. The Tiananmen incident remains China's bloody reality.
The French and German governments have for a time energetically campaigned for the European Union to lift the embargo on selling weapons to China, but the regime is one that maintains its political rule by killing people.
I can be regarded only as a nominal citizen. I am 32 this year, but I have never participated in an election - not an election of the head of state nor an election of the mayor. Not even once.
The legitimacy of Chinese Communist Party rule does not come from elections; it comes from military might. The founder of the party, Mao Zedong, once openly declared: "Political power comes from the barrel of a gun." There has not been any change in this principle today.
One aspect of the party authorities' foreign policy is to politely propagandise the foreign policy of China's peaceful rise to the people of the West.
Another aspect is to deliberately let Zhu Chenghu, the head of the National Defence University's Defence Academy and a People's Liberation Army major-general, issue an aggressive threat to the whole world, in asserting that China can launch a nuclear war on the West, particularly the United States.
Zhu Chenghu is a crown prince of pure lineage, the grandson of the founder of the Chinese Red Army, Zhu De. According to the Chinese Communist Party ruling principle that "the party commands the gun", it is not possible for a mere major-general to issue this kind of individual opinion on his own.
Even in a Western country with freedom of expression, a high-ranking military general cannot indiscreetly make his personal views about a nation's nuclear policy known in a public forum.
Zhu's views must therefore have received silent approval from the highest authorities - even from the nation's President, Hu Jintao. It's just like a master unleashing a fierce and vengeful dog to threaten the neighbours.
But Australian authorities blithely plan to export uranium ore to this highly dangerous regime, one side willingly believing a series of agreements, which China signed, that this uranium ore will not be used for military purposes.
But when have the Communist Party authorities genuinely respected international agreements?
The European Union should not lift the weapons embargo against China, and Australia should not export uranium ore to China.
This shortsighted behaviour can in the short term bring a definite economic benefit. But in the long term it will inevitably endanger world peace.
Yu Jie, the co-founder and vice-president of Independent Chinese PEN Centre, is a writer and intellectual based in Beijing. Translation by Chip Rolley.

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Uranium to China could go in nukes
Dan Box
The Australian
January 18, 2006

GOVERNMENT officials negotiating the sale of Australian uranium to China admit there is no guarantee it will never be used in nuclear weapons.
Australian diplomats, due to meet their Chinese counterparts today in Canberra, are expected to push for China to agree to safeguards similar to those signed by other nuclear weapons states that buy Australian uranium, such as the US, Britain and France.
The agreements are designed to prevent the use of Australian uranium in nuclear weapons. However, they allow countries with both nuclear power and nuclear weapons programs to mix Australian uranium with uranium from different sources.
The safeguards state only that an equivalent amount of uranium bought from Australia - designated Australian obligated nuclear material (AONM) - is not used in nuclear weapons.
This means Australian uranium can be mixed with uranium from other sources provided a portion of the total, matching the size of the Australian export, is used only for nuclear energy.
Australian officials admit the system means it is possible for Australian uranium to end up being used in the production of nuclear weapons.
"On an atom-for-atom basis it is theoretically possible," a government source said.
A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said yesterday Australian negotiators would insist that safeguards preventing the use of AONM in weapons production would be a condition of any trade in uranium to China.
"Use of AONM for nuclear weapons, nuclear explosive devices, military nuclear propulsion (or) depleted uranium munitions will be proscribed," he said.
Responsibility for monitoring the use of AONM is held by the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office, whose director-general, John Carlson, is leading the talks in Canberra.
The office already accepts there is public concern the AONM principle means Australian uranium may end up being used in nuclear weapons. "This overlooks the realities of the situation, that uranium atoms are indistinguishable from one another and there is no practical way of attaching flags to atoms," it says in a 2000 report.
Critics of the current negotiations also argue that any export deal will allow China to use Australian uranium for its energy, diverting more of its existing uranium supplies to its weapons program.
In December, Chinese ambassador to Australia Fu Ying told an audience at the Melbourne Mining Club that China had enough uranium resources to support its weapons program but would need to import more to meet its power demands.
China is planning a significant expansion of its nuclear energy program.
The Uranium Information Centre says China gets about half its uranium needs from its own mines - about 750 tonnes - with the balance imported from Kazakhstan, Russia and Namibia in Africa.
Today's talks are the result of years of informal negotiations between government and industry on both sides.
WMC Resources, the former owner of the Olympic Dam uranium mine in South Australia, lobbied Foreign Minister Alexander Downer in 2004 to open up discussions on an export safety agreement.
While Australia sits on about 40 per cent of the world's known uranium reserves, the industry's attempts to profit from this have suffered under longstanding Labor policy restricting mine development.
A number of senior party figures, including federal Opposition resources spokesman Martin Ferguson, support a change in the policy, widely expected to be debated at the ALP conference next year. This would be a significant step towards overturning restrictions on uranium development in place in individual Labor-held states.
"It's hard to accept that under the current policy we can, by 2011 or so, have the largest uranium mine in the world (at Olympic Dam) and be potentially the largest exporter of uranium in the world but, at the same time, say that some other little uranium mine which is a pip on the horizon can't be developed," Mr Ferguson said.

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New China syndrome
The Bulletin
02/01/2006
<bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/bulletin/site/articleIDs/8B9E747B1188D978CA257103000722FD>

If Australia wins a contract to supply uranium to China, it may very well wind up supplying material for nuclear weapons. Paul Daley reports.

So you thought Doctor Strangelove died in the rubble of the Berlin Wall? And the N-bomb menace? About as relevant, you say, as Sting bleating on about the Russians loving their children, too? Prepare for a frightening truth. The New Terrorism that ushered in the 21st century with such terrible effect courtesy of suicide bombers and hijacked passenger planes is fast being superseded by a renewed global nuclear threat.
And it’s not just terrorist groups like al-Qaeda who want to acquire or are threatening to use nuclear weapons. It seems the most onerous sabre-rattling today comes from the original nuclear powers – including China, France and the United States – and newcomers like Israel, Iran, Pakistan and India, which are developing, or already have, their own nukes.
Australia, which owns 40% of the world’s established uranium stocks, is central to the future of global nuclear power and, therefore, to weapons proliferation. China, an emerging superpower and repressive military regime with arguably little distinction between its nuclear energy and weapons programs, is energetically engaged in multi-billion-dollar negotiations with Canberra to buy Australian uranium to fuel its nuclear reactors. It plans to spend up to $40bn on a new program to ensure nuclear fuel provides up to 4% of its voracious domestic energy needs by 2010.
While the deal is worth potentially $450m a year to Australia’s uranium producers, it will be incumbent upon our political leaders to convince us of the virtually impossible – that any atomic material derived from Australian yellowcake sent to China is used solely for peaceful purposes. At the outset of diplomatic negotiations between Beijing and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on January 17 over the proposed Australia-China Nuclear Co-operation Treaty, Australian officials and politicians talked tough: Australia would insist on stringent "safeguards", they said, to ensure China couldn’t use our uranium for weapons. But that’s impossible to guarantee. Impossible, because any Australian safeguards will be predicated on the fundamentally flawed safety regime of the UN’s Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, which makes inspections of nuclear facilities optional for the five original nuclear weapons states, namely the US, Britain, Russia, France – and China.
In the past few months everything old, at least in the world of weapons of mass destruction, has become new again, as threats and counter-threats of nuclear strikes have issued forth across the globe.
This month, apropos of little, soon-to-be-former French President Jacques Chirac announced Paris reserved the right to use its nuclear arsenal, its force de frappe, against state-sponsored terrorists. This coincided with Israel’s thinly veiled warning that it might launch a nuclear strike against new global bad boy, Iran, if Tehran continued to defiantly pursue its quest to enrich uranium, a critical process in the production of nuclear power – and N-bombs. An overreaction? Just late last year the new Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, did, after all, declare that Israel should be "wiped off the map". Could this have been anything but a nuclear threat?
All the while China, fast becoming enough of a military and trade colossus to spook the US, last year warned Washington that its intervention in any military conflict over Taiwan would be met with a nuclear response.
"If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition onto the target zone on China’s territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons," said Zhu Chenghu, a general in the People’s Liberation Army.
"We, Chinese, will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all the cities east of Xian.Of course, the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese."
This reverberated in Washington and Taipei, where there is growing alarm over Australia’s negotiations with China.
The Secretary-General of Taiwan’s National Security Council, Professor Parris Chang, told The Bulletin that Australia could become an unwitting "accomplice" in China’s nuclear weapons program and should not trust Beijing’s assurances that its nuclear energy and weapons programs are distinct. He also stridently criticised Australia for having "east-tilted" towards China and for putting trade with Beijing ahead of regional security.
"China’s assurance is not that valuable because we know China’s record of proliferation ... and, yes, we know of China’s [nuclear technology] assistance to Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Pakistan. And so we look [at] what China is doing instead of just what China is saying," Chang says.
"Certainly, Australia doesn’t want to be seen as an accomplice in China’s manufacturing of nuclear weapons because the sale of uranium to China, even though the Chinese say this is for nuclear power use, well ... the so-called peaceful use of the uranium could be transferred to the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
"Australia also ought to place a great emphasis on the peace and security of the South-East Asian area. In recent years we have noticed that Australia has almost east-tilted towards China because of trade considerations ... even for the purpose of business, for the interests of Australia, [Taiwan thinks] that really, peace and security in East Asia would be very important."
Concerns such as Chang’s which, diplomatic sources maintain, are also held (albeit more discreetly) in the Pentagon, will, ironically, only make the prospect of a uranium deal with Australia all the sweeter for China.
One insider to the negotiations told- The Bulletin that while Beijing’s priority was to secure a deal, "it will happily drive a wedge between Washington and Canberra on China policy and security policy relating to Taiwan.
"There is much more riding on this for China than just a uranium deal."
China is, indeed, playing a deft game with Canberra. It has been underscored almost from the outset by an implied threat that if it gets too difficult, Beijing will take its fantastically lucrative business elsewhere. Beijing also made it clear well before formal negotiations began that it would play hard-ball on safeguards and would not subject itself to further – or perhaps any – IAEA inspections in relation to Australian uranium.
Last September, China’s leading arms control official, Zhang Yan, refused to say if Beijing would allow IAEA inspections as part of the safeguards governing the import of Australian uranium.
"I can’t give you an affirmative guarantee to that," he told The Australian.
Last December, meanwhile, China’s ambassador to Australia, Madam Fu Ying, reportedly told almost 600 of Australia’s leading mining executives that Australia needed to prove it was a "reliable" uranium supplier if it wanted the business.
"China really needs to be careful in where it chooses its source of supply," Fu said, adding that the "political environment" of supplier countries was a key factor.
"We don’t want this trade to be interrupted by other factors," she said.
While the Chinese embassy did not respond to The Bulletin’s repeated requests to interview Fu, insiders say she was effectively warning Australia not to complicate the deal with political bickering over safeguards or, indeed, the merits and safety of nuclear power.
It’s an argument likely to appeal to the pro-mining, pro-nuclear energy Foreign Minister Alexander Downer who, with the imprimatur of John Howard, strongly favours exporting Australian uranium to responsible buyers. The Chinese have gone out of their way to fete Downer over this deal.
"Australia holds the world’s largest uranium reserves, which enables us to make a major contribution to global energy production," he said in a major speech late last year. "It also means we have the responsibility and the opportunity to have a strong input on international efforts to counter proliferation of nuclear materials."
Downer and Howard will also be acutely mindful that any public debate on Australian uranium exports will draw attention to deep divisions in the Labor Party over its unworkable 1995 No New Mines Policy, which limits uranium production to the three existing mines – the giant Olympic Dam (which has a third of the world’s uranium reserves) and Beverley mines in South Australia, and the Northern Territory’s Ranger mine. Labor’s state leaders have been seriously at odds over uranium policy. Some opponents, including Western Australia’s recently retired premier Geoff Gallop, argued uranium mining opened the possibility of fissile material falling into the hands of terrorists. Others, like former NSW premier Bob Carr, have been more equivocal while Gallop’s replacement, Alan Carpenter, foreshadowed a change to WA Labor’s stance on uranium mining when he took over. Uranium stocks spiked.
Washington has made it clear it expects Australian military support in the event of any conflict with China over Taiwan. But could, as critics maintain, fissile material derived from Australian uranium find its way into Chinese nuclear warheads fired at American – or indeed, Australian – interests in such circumstances?
The answer, it seems, is yes.
Sources maintain that Australian officials, led by the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office – the section of our foreign service charged with ensuring Australian Obligated Nuclear Material is used solely for peaceful means – expect China will ultimately comply with what are in reality relatively relaxed safeguards imposed on other established nuclear weapons states, like Britain and the US, that have purchased our uranium. While the regulations allow export to countries, such as China, with both nuclear weapons and energy programs, such countries are only required to prove that the equivalent amount of yellowcake – as opposed to the specific uranium in the shipment – is used solely for power generation.
Any Australian uranium imported by China can, therefore, be mixed with uranium from elsewhere and used to make weapons – so long as a portion of the total, equal to the size of the Australian take, is demonstrably used solely for energy production.
As ASNO noted in a 2000 report: "Uranium atoms are indistinguishable from one another and there is no practical way of attaching flags to atoms."
Since the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty, which made possession of nuclear weapons the sole prerogative of China and the other nuclear weapons states – the Club of Five – other states must subject themselves to IAEA inspections if they wish to acquire nuclear technology.
Numerous countries – including North Korea, Pakistan, South Africa, India and now Iran – have covertly developed nuclear weapons while enriching uranium for energy.
The inherent bias of the IAEA safeguards towards the Club of Five underpins the safety guidelines for Australian uranium exports, because only states outside the club are subject to additional international protocols of random inspection and verification.
Despite much conjecture, it remains unclear what safeguards China will ultimately accept. China has indicated it would prefer Australian officials – rather than IAEA inspectors – to enforce any requisite safeguards attached to the Australian deal.
A DFAT spokeswoman confirmed to The Bulletin that the safeguards being sought by Australia in relation to the proposed uranium deal were based on those of the IAEA.
She said Australia was confident that, in the event of a deal, no Australian uranium would make its way into China’s weapons program. "Consistent with other similar agreements China will be required to give a binding treaty-level commitment to use Australian uranium solely for peaceful purposes. Military purposes will be proscribed. It should be noted that Australian uranium would not be supplied to China for unspecified purposes, but would be sold to Chinese power utilities for electricity generation."
In the event of a deal, the spokeswoman said, Australians would not carry out inspections. "Under arrangements anticipated, the IAEA would conduct inspections – ASNO would monitor the flow of Australian nuclear material in China through nuclear accountancy, analysis of reporting provided by counterparts, and other relevant information."
The Australian Conservation Foundation, which opposes nuclear power and uranium exports, is stepping up its campaign against the Australia-China Nuclear Co-operation Treaty. It says all states should be subject to the additional safeguards.
"Our understanding is that a deal is being put forward whereby China will be expected to sign up to the existing safeguard regime, that is a non-binding agreement that will allow China to exclude certain facilities from inspection or opt out, citing national security, altogether," says the ACF’s David Noonan.
"The ACF is also concerned that China – which, according to a US Congressional report has exported weapons technology to Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, Libya and Syria – does not make a real distinction between its nuclear weapons and energy programs and is opposed to any transparency in the process."
Despite the ambiguity surrounding China’s nuclear programs, others argue that supplying uranium to China for energy simply frees up other uranium for weapons.
"Yes, sure, of course, unavoidably so – unless China were swimming in such a glut of uranium that it would never consider importing any. But if it is considering importing, then it presumably would not easily have enough for all its needs – civilian and military – without those imports," says Norman Rubin, director of Nuclear Research at Energy Probe, an anti-nuclear think-tank in Canada, another country negotiating uranium exports to China.
"In those circumstances, even if every atom of Australian uranium can be proved to have ended up in civilian use, Australia would still be helping China to meet its needs for military explosive uranium. One might as well argue that Australians should send money to al-Qaeda for flight training lessons, but not for knives or guns. In fact, sending money to al-Qaeda for textbooks and medicines and food and childcare is probably illegal in Australia, as it should be, because it will inevitably increase their ability to buy explosives and box-cutters."
"The bottom line," says the figure involved in the Beijing–Canberra negotiations, "is that China has enough uranium supplies for power or weapons, but not both, to last until 2020."
The talks between Australia and China will continue in the weeks ahead, but our insider describes the deal as a fait accompli.
All of which might give Sting something new (or should that be old?) to sing about.
 

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