Someone’s loss is someone’s gain.
Now, we will show you two reports, laying bare the idiotic policy of the US which is helping China expand its nuclear arsenal.
Here is the first one: Russia restricts enriched uranium exports to the United States. It was done in response to US sanctions on Russia. Putin said, let’s impose some counter-sanctions. Russia will no longer export uranium, titanium and nickel to US now.
Let’s first understand why is it a setback for US. Russia accounted for 27% of the enriched uranium supplied to US commercial nuclear reactors last year. Mind the fact that it is the US who first imposed sanctions on uranium from Russia, but later waived off its own sanctions for next four years in the country’s “national interests”.
Russia is after all the boss of the industry. Russia is the world’s sixth largest uranium producer and controls about 44% of global uranium enrichment capacity. The total export value is estimated to be $2.7 billion.
There are also reports that the Russian uranium is now reaching US covertly through China-flagged vessels.
Let’s look at the second report now: China triples uranium imports from Russia.
Beijing is poised to become the largest importer of Russian nuclear fuel this year.
You see: Someone’s loss is someone’s gain.
China has bought $849 million worth of enriched uranium from Russia – a 3.2-fold increase compared to the same period last year.
What is China doing with this much nuclear fuel?
Officially, it is all for peaceful purposes. The Chinese government says its nuclear cooperation with Russia is limited to civilian purposes and adheres to global obligations.
Of course, that’s not the complete picture.
Concerns are mounting that Russia might be helping China expand its Nuclear Weapons Program.
According to open-source estimates, China’s past fissile material production indicate that China does not have enough plutonium to make the more than 1,000 nuclear warheads the Pentagon claims China will deploy by 2035. This extra plutonium will come from Russia.
Now it is to be noted that Russian export laws and bilateral agreements with China explicitly prohibit the use of supplied materials for military purposes. But American policy over the past decades has forced Russia to become overly dependent on China. And it means that China can easily force Russia into tweaking its laws. And that would be a great security threat for the US.
Simply put, by ostracizing Russia, US is only fuelling its own threat, is only give China a free run.
In March, during Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia, Rosatom, which is Russia’s state nuclear corporation, and China’s Atomic Energy Authority signed a long-term cooperation agreement on developing fast-neutron reactors and closed nuclear fuel cycles.
Fast reactors use uranium-238, the most commonly found isotope, to generate plutonium-239, which can be used as nuclear fuel or in nuclear weapons.
This has got US alarmed, anxious. John Plumb, the Pentagon’s assistant secretary for space policy, expressed his worries about the collaboration between Russia and China in the nuclear energy sector during a hearing in March.
It is so ironic! First of all, you create such policies in US that in a way force Russia to be over-dependent on China. Then you realise, oh shit! China and Russia are becoming friends, they are so bad! It’s just another example of how dumb, how short-sighted US policymakers are! I hope we see a change under Trump.
