SYDNEY
- Asia's relentless pursuit of nuclear energy is causing
a few sleepless nights for the anti-terrorism community
as the security focus shifts from rogue states with
regional ambitions to the equally sinister back door of
individual opportunism.
A summit of 18
Asia-Pacific security ministers in Sydney late last week
was told that few states had safeguards in place to
prevent the illicit export of nuclear materials that
could be used to make explosive devices or hold
countries to ransom.
The International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) even went so far as to label the
threat posed by this trade as "a race against time",
noting that there had been about 630 confirmed incidents
of trafficking in nuclear or other radioactive materials
since 1993.
"We need to do all we can to work on
the new phenomenon called nuclear terrorism, which was
sprung on us after [September 11, 2001] when we realized
terrorists had become more sophisticated and had shown
an interest in nuclear and radioactive material," IAEA
chief Mohammed ElBaradei said at the talks.
For
now, the response is stronger on rhetoric than reason,
with politicians in Sydney committing their governments
to "expand and enhance the nuclear safeguards and
security framework", but offering few leads on how these
nebulous aims might be achieved.
The United
Kingdom, the United States, France and the Soviet Union,
the four original nuclear powers, pledged after China's
entry into the select club three decades ago to freeze
the spread of the technology in Asia as a Cold War
buffer.
There was some logic in this approach,
given that six of the 14 known nuclear alerts have
occurred in the Asia-Pacific region, dating back to the
decision by US president Harry S Truman to send atomic
weapons to Guam in 1950 for possible use against China.
More recently, forces from Japan, the US and the
Soviet Union went on a war footing in 1984 after a rogue
officer in the Soviet navy sent an unauthorized message
to nuclear-armed vessels approving a strike.
Two
confrontations have occurred since 1999 between India
and Pakistan that almost resulted in a nuclear exchange;
the first was over Kashmir and the second followed an
attack by Islamic militants on the Indian parliament.
But although there are still only three declared
nuclear powers in Asia - China, Pakistan and India - the
region has 100 reactors for research and power
generation that some security experts believe pose a
potentially bigger challenge due to the physical
impossibility of accounting for every atom of
radioactive material. According to the World Nuclear
Association (WNA), which represents commercial interests
in the nuclear field, Asia is the only region in the
world where nuclear power is "growing significantly".
Japan, China, India, Pakistan, Taiwan,
Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea, Bangladesh, Malaysia
and Vietnam all have operational reactors; North Korea
has two partially completed reactors, but work has
halted because of concerns over their illicit weapons
capabilities. There is also a nuclear power plant in the
Philippines, but it has been mothballed over litigation
concerning bribery and safety deficiencies and is
expected eventually to be converted to coal or oil.
Another 20 reactors are under construction and
there are plans for a further 40, mostly in China,
Japan, South Korea and India. If all proceed, Asia will
have 160 reactors within a decade, with only Singapore
yet to declare an interest in the technology.
Not surprisingly, it is big oil importers such
as Japan and South Korea that have shown the strongest
commitment to nuclear energy. The Japanese have 53
operational power plants and 17 research reactors, with
three more under construction and 12 planned. Already
nuclear energy provides 39% of total electricity
generation and the dependency could rise to 50% by 2010
if greenhouse emission targets are met.
South
Korea meets 39% of its electricity needs from nuclear
power generated at 18 plants and has two more under
construction and eight in the planning stages; there are
also two research reactors.
China's nuclear
industry is still modest, with only eight power units in
operation, but is expected by the WNA to expand rapidly
as domestic coal and gas reserves dwindle. An additional
three plants are under construction, 10 more are planned
or proposed, and there are 13 research facilities.
India and Taiwan have 14 and six power plants
respectively, with the Indians expected to gain another
13 by the end of the decade. Taiwan, which gets 21% of
its power from nuclear units, is building two more
plants.
Keeping track of all of these plants has
not proved easy, especially as the two countries with
the most checkered record on nuclear brinkmanship -
India and Pakistan - are not signatories to the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the IAEA's main
monitoring mechanism.
Of the other countries
with reactors, only Japan, South Korea, Malaysia,
Indonesia and the Philippines are full NPT members,
though China, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Thailand have
acceded to the treaty. North Korea signed an IAEA
safeguards treaty in 1992, but withdrew the following
year.
The IAEA itself failed to detect the
worldwide black market in nuclear technology overseen by
Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, even while the
highest levels of that country's armed forces were aware
of his activities.
Critics, including many
scientists in the environmental and human-rights
movements, have suggested that the IAEA and other
watchdog organizations were too complacent on the
proliferation risks posed by Asia's blossoming peaceful
nuclear-energy programs.
NPT allows the IAEA to
keep count of the isotopes at individual plants, but
only if it is granted free access to facilities. As
shown by the IAEA's flawed success in verifying nuclear
stockpiles in Iraq, Iran, Libya and North Korea, this
doesn't always happen.
The Khan case also showed
how impotent the agency becomes once materials go
missing and reach smuggling routes, where they become
entangled with mainstream criminal activities.
Researchers with the US-based Strategic Studies
Institute (SSI) and a group of security organizations,
including the US Central Intelligence Agency, have
concluded that plutonium filched from research
facilities is passed along the same channels used by
gangs that traffic narcotics and human beings.
Furthermore, "the networks that support the
terrorist groups in Asia are probably intersecting with
the networks that facilitate trade between suppliers and
consumers in nuclear-proliferation trade", the agencies
reported after a workshop on the effectiveness of the
NPT.
"The nuclear-proliferation networks are in
place. Shutting down A Q Khan's network in Pakistan did
not necessarily eliminate the networks," the report
added.
A review of the NPT is scheduled next
year, with Asian policymakers variously advocating an
extension of its mandate or total abolition. Japan,
China and South Korea are among a group of countries
that are lukewarm on multilateral solutions for security
issues, though they will probably bow to pressure from
Washington for a treaty extension.
Most analysts
believe the NPT will only work at the anti-terrorism
level if it is backed by a political response and a more
responsible attitude by the suppliers of nuclear
technology, which often ignore pleas for restraint. But
as the SSI workshop noted, there has been a "fundamental
failure of any state or group of states to emerge as a
force to advocate regional solutions to nuclear security
risks facing the Asia-Pacific".
"Important
components of the international community's
non-proliferation strategies - the Nuclear Suppliers
Group (NSG), the Missile Technology Control Regime
(MTCR), and other dual-use-technology export-control
regimes - have failed to stem the trade in nuclear
materials and technologies in Asia. There, nuclear
suppliers appear willing to satisfy the demands of
persistent buyers," the workshop reported.
The
UK, the US and Russia, the original three sponsors of
the NPT, have all exported nuclear technology to Asia,
as has France. However, most of the recent growth has
come from within Asia itself, with Pakistan, China,
South and North Korea and India all entering the market.
Khan's network was based in a country that has
refused to sign the NPT and its main customers - North
Korea and Iran - are also outside the treaty. Yet there
has been no peer pressure from elsewhere in the region.
One reason for the political lethargy is that
there is no consensus on the extent of the threat posed
by illicit exports of nuclear material, with much of
Asia viewing localized terrorist activities as a more
immediate problem.
IAEA chief ElBaradei also
acknowledged in his address to the Sydney summit that
attempts to regulate the flow of nuclear technology
conflict with Asia's free-trade mentality, and
governments are reluctant to provide export data.
"The only reasonable conclusion is that the
control of technology is not, in itself, a sufficient
barrier against further proliferation," he said. "For an
increasing number of countries with a highly developed
industrial infrastructure - and in some cases access to
high-enriched uranium or plutonium - the international
community must rely primarily on a continuing sense of
security as the basis for the adherence of these
countries to their non-proliferation commitments. And
security perceptions can rapidly change."
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