CCP’s Nuclear Power Program Will Produce Large Quantities of Nuclear Weapons Material

China’s push to develop fuel for a new generation of nuclear power reactors will produce large amounts of material that could be used to make nuclear weapons, U.S. experts on nuclear weapons proliferation said Thursday, according to Reuters.

China is working to develop advanced nuclear reactors and nuclear waste disposal facilities in an effort to reduce its reliance on coal, but those nuclear waste disposals would also produce plutonium elements that could be used to make nuclear weapons, the report said.

There is no evidence that the Communist Party intends to divert its potential stockpile of plutonium to the development of nuclear weapons, but experts worry that Beijing will dramatically increase the number of its nuclear warheads over the next decade.

Zhang Hui, a senior fellow at the Harvard Project, was quoted as saying, “To reduce international concerns about potential plutonium diversion, China needs to keep its nuclear waste recycling program more transparent, including timely reporting of its stockpile of civilian plutonium material, as it did before 2016.”