The effect of U.S. nuclear energy cooperation on recipient states’ nonproliferation policies: A case study of U.S.-China nuclear cooperation

The relative decline in the U.S. export of nuclear power technologies and in the nuclear generating capacity of U.S. operators has raised the prospect that the United States will lose important influence on the nonproliferation policies and standards that guide nuclear trade and operations. This concern, however, assumes that the cooperative nuclear supply relationships that the United States forged in the past have had a significant effect on these factors. This paper examines this assumption by focusing on the critical case of nuclear trade between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. This case study of several periods within the history of U.S.-Chinese nuclear trade suggests the amount of nuclear technology and materials supplied by the United States has been less important in affecting China’s nuclear nonproliferation policies and behavior than has been the terms of cooperation between the two countries and the more general role that the United States has played in framing the nuclear nonproliferation regime and influencing the policies and behaviors of other supplier states. As Chinese nonproliferation policies and behavior have become more stringent, and as China’s desire for U.S. nuclear technology wanes, U.S. influence on Chinese nonproliferation policy is likely to decrease regardless of the state of the domestic U.S. nuclear industry.