Nonproliferation and security implications of the evolving nuclear export market

In recent decades, the global nuclear export market has observed a marked shift of demand from the traditional customers in the Western world to the Asian countries, especially China, India, or nuclear newcomers like the United Arab Emirates. The lack of new projects in the U.S., the delay in the French construction of Generation-IV reactors, and the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan have also led to the decrease in industrial and financial capabilities of the once-dominant nuclear suppliers from these countries. Instead, China will likely become a major player in the civil nuclear export market due to its close connection with nuclear newcomers in term of economic transactions, arms trade, and its lack of political animosity with some potential customers. On the other hand, the relative contribution of China to the IAEA safeguards budget remains the lowest among other major nuclear exporters like the U.S., Canada, France, Russia, Japan, or even South Korea. This is especially troubling given the fact that the most potential customers of China are newcomer states, mostly from in Asia or Africa, who do not have experiences in nuclear security and safeguards of major nuclear facility like nuclear power plant, and thus create additional burden for IAEA, budget-wise and manpower-wise. In this paper, the nonproliferation and security risks caused by the introduction of nuclear power by suppliers and to recipients with lesser governance capabilities are discussed, with focus on their implementation of safeguards and export control measures. To address this issue, a new contribution scheme for the IAEA safeguards and an enhanced participation to the nonproliferation and export control regime are proposed to reflect the potentials of the “old” and the “new” nuclear exporters in the market, as well as the rise of new customers.