It is often said that disasters and misinformation are best friends, who together make situations too bad too fast. China seems to have not learned from the way in which its tendency to lie and hide facts has sent the whole world into a reiterating pandemic. The Chinese government and its official news services have remained silent amid reports of a suspected radiation leak at a nuclear power plant, nearly 24 hours after the facility’s operator claimed all of the readings were “normal.”
According to CNN, the US government has been examining a claim of a leak at the Taishan power station in Guangdong province, which is run by a joint venture between EDF and China General Nuclear Power Group, for the past week (CGN). However, the Taishan Nuclear Power Joint Venture Company (TNPJVC) released a statement late on Sunday to pre-emptively refute a CNN report claiming the facility had been “leaking fission gas.”
As these attempts of stifling any news of a leak are going on by the Chinese Communist Party, this self-serving motive will lead to further crises. As the world stands at the brink of another Chernobyl like disaster and China is to be blamed for it. Framatome, the EDF subsidiary that designed the plant’s reactor and is still involved in its operations, has warned of an “imminent radioactive threat,” according to the US news network.
The build-up of noble gases krypton and xenon in the primary circuit of Taishan plant reactor No. 1 was a “known phenomenon, analysed, and provided for in the reactor operating procedures,” according to EDF. However, in the face of all these reports of a radiation leak and counterclaims by the Chinese government and media, terming it to be a minor incident, countries like the USA have neither confirmed the claim nor denied it. One should remember that CCP cannot be trusted when it comes to telling the truth, if anything the Pandemic and the Wuhan virus is an example of how it is more concerned about a false global image rather than the lives of its citizens.
During the Chernobyl disaster, Communist USSR also tried to hide the truth at first, trying to downplay the severity and then the world came to know what a disaster it was. Similarly, given the fact that much of the information is not out yet, countries are waiting it out rather than taking one of the two sides. And the fact that no one is believing the Chinese government version verbatim, they know a communist regime cannot be trusted when it comes to these kinds of things.
According to CNN, the plant’s designer and equipment supplier Framatome—mainly owned by France’s EDF—alerted the Biden administration to its concerns in two memos dated June 3 and 8. Framatome claimed the site was continuing to operate despite the fission gas leak because China’s top nuclear authority had revised the safety limit to beyond indicators acceptable under French standards. The Biden administration has been assessing the reports for several weeks, and the White House held National Security Council meetings to discuss the matter, CNN said.