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2 Australia, the Saudi Arabia of
uranium By Alan Boyd
India in 2005 and is keen to
nurture closer military ties as a counter to
China's regional ambitions.
Diplomats have
also been impressed by India's increased
involvement in global disarmament efforts,
including its strong support for a United Nations
motion tightening sanctions on Iran over that
country's uranium-enrichment program.
New
Delhi, like Beijing, will have to accede to a
separate
Australian nuclear-safeguards
protocol that provides for regular checks of the
exported mineral and specifically prohibits any
diversion of the uranium for non-peaceful uses.
Regarded as one of the toughest export
codes in the world, the Australian safeguards
protocol is usually a supplement to checks
required by the IAEA as part of the NPT.
The reprocessing of used fuel is only
permitted as part of a recipient country's
nuclear-energy program that has already been
approved by Australia, and any reprocessing must
be done under IAEA safeguards. Transfers of
nuclear material are only allowed to countries
that have bilateral safeguards agreements with
Canberra.
There are 19 export agreements
in force with three dozen countries, including
Asian nuclear-power producers China, Japan, Taiwan
and South Korea, as well as the Philippines. Japan
last year took 25% of Australia's ore and South
Korea 10%.
Yet there are gaps in the
surveillance mechanisms that researchers have
highlighted since China was allowed in, and the
state Labor governments, wary of Beijing's tense
relationship with India, may be more reticent
about selling to either country.
Nuclear-proliferation expert Richard
Broinowski, a former Australian ambassador to
South Korea, said that while China might comply
with the safeguards protocol, using the uranium
for power generation would allow Beijing to use
its own more limited ore for military purposes.
"I'm very worried about this. I think the
Australians are seeing dollar signs all over the
place," Professor Broinowski said.
Both
India and China are preparing to become major
exporters of nuclear technologies, with Southeast
Asian countries such as Malaysia, Thailand and
Indonesia, all dependant to some extent on
imported fuels, expected to be the first targets.
While this heightens the risk of
proliferation, it also adds to concerns that the
voracious fuel consumption of India and China will
increasingly dictate energy markets in Asia, as
their surging demand in effect decides the
availability and pricing of resources. Already the
annual negotiations for coal shipments between
Chinese buyers and the major producers, including
Australia, set the benchmarks for other countries,
as do contracts for other ores.
Another
potential problem is the enrichment of uranium at
the source, which may happen if Australia decides
to set up its own nuclear power grid, after
relying for decades on a seemingly inexhaustible
supply of cheap coal.
A federal government
report released last year recommended that the
nuclear program proceed and also raised the
possibility of developing an enrichment capability
to add value to ore exports. Highly enriched
uranium can be used to make nuclear weapons.
Strategic analyst Professor Hugh White of
the Australian National University warned that
Australia's Asian neighbors might see enrichment
as a threat - especially if Canberra decides to
look again at building its own weapons system, an
idea rejected in the 1970s.
"The growth of
China and India, the strategic re-emergence of
Japan and uncertainty about America's post-Iraq
trajectory raise doubts whether the next 30 years
will be as peaceful in Asia as the past 30 years,"
he wrote in a recent report.
"If Asia
slips back into the kind of strategic turmoil we
saw in the 1950s and 1960s, how sure can we be
that Australia might not again look at the nuclear
option? And how sure could our neighbors be?
"No matter what we think and say, a
decision to develop uranium-enrichment capability
in Australia would be seen by our neighbors as a
short-cut to nuclear weapons. We would need to
think very carefully about how they might
respond," he said.
Alan Boyd is
a Sydney-based correspondent.
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