With Chinese President Xi Jinping arriving in Ahmedabad on Wednesday, experts argue that the India-China civil nuclear cooperation could see many benefits as India looks to multiply its current nuclear power capacity of 4,780 MW to 20,000 MW by 2020.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has continued the United Progressive Alliance government’s quest for nuclear energy by signing an agreement with Australia for uranium and pushing for a nuclear deal with Japan.
However, the refusal by Japanese officials to complete the deal during Mr. Modi’s visit to Tokyo has upset those calculations. Not only is Japan a potential direct supplier of reactors to India, Japanese companies Mitsubishi and Toshiba are major shareholders in GEC and Westinghouse, the two U.S. companies India has hoped to do nuclear commerce with.
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Even French company Areva, which is building the Jaitapur plant, manufactures important components in Japan. Cooperation with China could, therefore, prove a counterpoint on nuclear commerce by any of these countries.
“For example, the Westinghouse MoU for Mithi Virdi in Gujarat is also for an AP1000 reactor, which has been stalled over U.S. concerns on the supplier liability clause,” says W.P.S. Sidhu, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute. “At some point, if India suggests China is a possible and cheaper contender for that plant, it may sharpen the U.S. desire to complete the project.”