China's Hu set to offer Pakistan nuclear plants

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China's Hu set to offer Pakistan nuclear plants

Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:41am ET

By Chris Buckley
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Hu Jintao is poised to unveil an ambitious expansion of nuclear power cooperation with Pakistan when he visits next week, testing China's balance between Pakistan and its wary neighbor, India.
On the first trip to Pakistan by a Chinese president in a decade, Hu is likely to announce that China will help the South Asian nation construct several nuclear plants in coming decades, said analysts and diplomatic sources.
"The political intent is quite certain. The specifics are less certain, but this will be a political gesture above all," said one diplomatic observer in Beijing. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the official secrecy around discussions.


There has been no official word of any nuclear deal during Hu's visit and Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said no new deal was imminent.
"Pakistan and China have long-standing cooperation in the civilian nuclear field and this is continuing. There are no specific agreements at the moment to be signed," she said.
Islamabad has asked China to build it up to six reactors of 600 or more megawatts, at least twice the size of the 300 megawatt reactor China built at Chashma in Pakistan's eastern province of Punjab, according to the Beijing-based observer.
The broad agreement appears likely, however, to leave the scale and specifics of cooperation for future talks -- and also leave open whether China, with its own bold plans for expanding nuclear power, can spare the expertise to back Pakistan's expansion.
But even a vague agreement will remind the world that China values its "all-weather friend" Pakistan, even while Beijing courts India, a sometimes bitter rival of both countries. Hu will visit India before Pakistan.

"Pakistan has been eager for a nuclear deal and raised it a number of times," said Zhang Li of the Institute of South Asian Studies at Sichuan University in southwest China.
"I think there are signs that Hu will make an announcement during this visit to show relations are developing in a healthy direction."
India and Pakistan both staged nuclear explosions in 1998 and have refused to joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that would oblige them to give up atomic weapons.




An announcement during Hu's visit would cap intense lobbying from Islamabad, eager to expand nuclear ties with Beijing and offset India's influence and U.S.-backed nuclear energy plan.
Last year, India signed an atomic energy pact with the United States that Congress is now studying, but Washington rebuffed Islamabad's efforts to reach a similar agreement. Pakistan has been keen to show that it does not lack other sources of support.
When Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf visited Beijing in February, both sides announced they would "continue strengthening cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy".
China's Foreign Ministry would not directly say whether Hu would announce a deal during his visit, but said Beijing wanted to build on the two countries' current pact on nuclear energy cooperation.
"This visit will play a major milestone role," spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters. "We're willing to expand cooperation with Pakistan within the framework of this agreement."
The Beijing-based China Business Times reported in August that China was likely to announce in November it would sell Pakistan six 300-megawatt plants.
China has said any nuclear cooperation would be for peaceful purposes only and would accept international safeguards.
But a nuclear agreement may rankle Washington, worried about China's atomic exports, especially after Pakistan's chief nuclear scientist, A.Q. Khan, admitted in 2004 that he sold nuclear know-how to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Before China joined the NPT in 1992, it helped Pakistan develop nuclear weapons, the United States has said.
A Washington official said on Monday that President George W. Bush may raise worries about Pakistan's nuclear program when he meets Hu at the APEC meeting in Hanoi this week.


"We have any many occasions spoken very clearly about our concerns about proliferation and proliferation by Chinese entities to Pakistan," the official said in Washington, according to a State Department Web site (www.fpc.state.gov).
(Additional reporting by Vivi Lin in Beijing and Robert Birsel in Islamabad)

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China, Pakistan sign trade pact during Hu visit
Nov 24 4:50 AM US/Eastern

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharraf have overseen the signing of a landmark free trade deal and vowed to take the allies' "evergreen" relationship to new heights.

The two countries also agreed to cooperate on airborne early warning radar planes and inked a slew of other agreements to boost their ties in the spheres of defence, energy and the economy.

Officials have said the trade agreement could triple bilateral trade to 15 billion dollars within five years in a key move for both the Asian giant and the developing country.

"This serves the fundamental interests of our two peoples and is also conducive to the peace and development of our region," Hu told a news conference after hour-long talks with Musharraf Friday.

"We want to work with Pakistan to raise our strategic ties to a new level," added the first Chinese leader, the first to visit the Islamic republic for a decade.

Musharraf, whose country is keen to reinforce its 55-year-old ties with Beijing amid concern India and China are becoming increasingly close, said the "evergreen relationship of Pakistan and China will remain for all time".

The presidents watched their ministers of commerce ink the trade pact and other accords, including a separate five-year development programme which the Chinese news agency Xinhua said was the first of its kind for Beijing.

They also agreed to set up a joint investment company.

But while Hu said that Beijing would continue to cooperate with Pakistan's nuclear power industry -- China has built one reactor here and is helping to construct another -- he did not announce any new deal.

Pakistani officials had earlier dismissed "speculative" reports that China would unveil a major new atomic agreement with Pakistan similar to one made between its arch-rival India and the United States earlier this year.

Separately Pakistan's Air Force said it had agreed with China to jointly develop aircraft equipped with long-range early warning radars.

"The same may be delivered to Pakistan in coming years," it said in a statement, without specifying a timeframe.

Beijing remains Islamabad's largest arms supplier and the two are jointly developing the JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft. China has also invested millions of dollars in a deep sea port in southwest Pakistan to access the Arabian Sea.

Pakistan will later Friday give Hu the rare honour of addressing the nation live on state television, becoming the first foreign leader to do so since then-US president Bill Clinton in 2000.

Pakistan's ambassador to Beijing, Salman Bashir, told state media Thursday that bilateral trade should hit 15 billion dollars within five years of implementation of the free trade pact.

Last year, trade between China and Pakistan grew by 39 percent to 4.26 billion dollars compared with 2004, according to Chinese commerce ministry statistics.

Hu was greeted with a 21-gun salute after flying in late Thursday from a landmark trip to India, during which he pledged to double trade between the Asian giants and speed up work to resolve a border row.

Hu and Musharraf are also expected to inaugurate a special economic zone in Lahore when the Chinese leader travels to the historic eastern city on Saturday.

Maqbool Bhatti, Pakistan's ambassador to China from 1982 to 1987, said Hu's "milestone" visit after a 10-year gap had "psychological importance" for Pakistan after the United States decided to treat India as a strategic partner.

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