China’s Nuclear-Power Chief: A Spy?

From The New Yorker: China’s Nuclear-Power Chief: A Spy?

When Kang Rixin, the head of China’s nuclear-power program, was sentenced to life in prison last November for taking bribes, it was a troubling enough piece of news. Given the speed, scale, and ambition of China’s nuclear program—it has more plants in the planning stage than the rest of the world combined—it did not project reassuring evidence that China has shielded this crucial program from the kind of construction-corruption that has dogged the high-speed rail system.

Today brought startling news. Midway through a video leaked on the Chinese Web, a senior military official explains previously unknown details about major spying cases uncovered in recent years, including the fact that bribery was hardly the most serious accusation against Kang. He is accused of selling secrets about China’s nuclear power industry to foreign countries. “Kang’s case can’t be made public because the damage he has done by selling secrets was a lot more devastating than economic losses,” Major General Jin Yinan said in the video.

If true, it would make Kang one of China’s highest-ranking figures to be accused of spying. (Before his downfall, he was a member of the Communist Party’s elite Central Committee and the Central Disciplinary Committee.) Before we start conjuring images of a Chinese A. Q. Khan, it’s worth remembering that Kang had no (known) involvement with the weapons programs, and that selling secrets is a flexible notion in China; accusations that might lead to charges of simple bribery one day can be upgraded to divulging “business secrets” the next.

But the reason for concern is what this says about the technical and management rigor surrounding the world’s most ambitious nuclear program. If the boss—a man who has already gained access to the highest ranks of political and economic power—was willing to sell access, what were the frustrated staff beneath him willing do to do?

Related: The Guardian is reporting this week that a leaked U.S. cable out of Beijing says that China “has ‘vastly increased’ the risk of a nuclear accident by opting for cheap technology that will be 100 years old by the time dozens of its reactors reach the end of their lifespans.”