Chinese state media has slammed the United States for its approach to counterterrorism ahead of Thursday’s fourth Nuclear Security Summit (NSS), amid concerns that extremist groups could now blow up atomic power plants in the aftermath of the recent bombings in Belgium.
A commentary on Wednesday in the state-run Xinhua news agency stressed that Washington was focusing on fighting symptoms rather than root causes of nuclear terrorism threats.
“As world leaders grapple with intensified nuclear security threats, they should not be distracted by the immediate urgency of safeguarding nuclear facilities and slack off in addressing the fundamental problem of terrorism,” observed the agency.
Nuclear security summit
President Barack Obama is hosting the fourth and last two-day nuclear security summit at Washington. China’s President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are also participating in the event, where Japanese President Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye are among the invited guests.
Mr. Obama will hold talks with Mr. Xi, along with a trilateral meeting with guests from Tokyo and Seoul — a mini-summit on the sidelines that is bound to focus on the escalating nuclear crisis in the Korean Peninsula.
Terrorists’ access to ‘dirty bombs’
While the Korean crisis remains a growing concern in the absence of a restart of talks, the prime focus of the summit is the denial of atomic weapons to terror groups, and their access to “dirty bombs.” This relatively inexpensive option can be exercised once conventional explosives are embedded in radioactive material. The resulting explosion can cause extensive and lasting public damage, triggering a wave of terror worldwide.
Nuke attack plan of Brussels attackers
But the Xinhua write-up also pointed to last week’s attacks in Brussels, which highlighted “the startling news that the suicide bombers in the Brussels attacks were originally considering an attack on a nuclear site in Belgium and then were forced to change targets because of a series of arrests, as reported by the Belgian DH newspaper.”
The write-up then highlighted the pitfalls of an imbalanced security-oriented approach towards combating nuclear terrorism, such as the possible infiltration of compromised nuclear plant workers in facilities, or the launch of cyber attacks on atomic power units.
2010 attack on Iranian plant
Analysts say that the 2010 attack on Iran’s Bushehr plant, using the Stuxnet malware, highlights the power of cyber attacks on civilian nuclear facilities.
The commentary stressed that geopolitical rivalries have often obstructed consensus on fighting nuclear terrorism, and accused Washington of pursuing “hypocrisy” by denouncing China’s first anti-terror law.
Despite flaying Washington, it is evident that mutual accommodation is also part of the complex Sino-U.S. nuclear story.
5 areas of institutional cooperation
People’s Daily , China’s official newspaper, on Wednesday lists five areas of institutional cooperation that have contributed in the development of peaceful nuclear technology and curbed proliferation of atomic
weapons.
First, China and the U.S. have established an annual dialogue mechanism on nuclear security, and its first meeting was held in Stockholm on February 20, the daily quoted an unnamed official of the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA) as saying.
Second, the two countries have established a China-based nuclear security center which began operations earlier this month. On March 26, a unit that used low-enriched uranium — a material that cannot be used for atomic weapons — was also running at full power.
Nuke waste management
Besides, nuclear waste management is a joint priority, along with curbing illicit trafficking of nuclear material. The daily said that a training center on radiation detection has been established at the port of Qinhuangdao in North China’s Hebei Province to counter nuclear smuggling, along with the launch of a pilot programme at Shanghai’s Yangshan port for a similar purpose.
