The Biden administration is further strengthening controls on the export of materials for nuclear power plants to China and Macau, reasoning that these efforts will enhance the United States’s ability to ensure the materials are being used “peacefully” and not for the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
“These controls enhance U.S. Government efforts to monitor the export of these items and to ensure they are only being used in peaceful activities such as commercial nuclear power generation, medical developments, production of or use in medicine, and non-military industries,” the Bureau of Industry and Security, an arm of the Commerce Department, said in a rule put out this week.
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The announcement is the latest sign of further tension between Washington and Beijing, a relationship that has recently seen allegations of intellectual property theft and the U.S.’s most recent export bans on advanced technologies to China.
The bureau would amend the Export Administration Regulations by requiring certain materials to have a license before they’re sent to China.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency responsible for nuclear energy safety, is now also requiring exporters to acquire specific licenses to send out nuclear and source material to China.
The new rule, which was published to the Federal Register on Monday, would place China on the list of countries excluded from “general licenses,” which usually allows entities authorized to possess the materials to export to any other country without seeking prior approval from the NRC or the federal government. Amounts above a certain threshold, however, would require a “specific license” and therefore case-by-case approval by the NRC. Specifically, licensed exports would not be affected by this order and rather would be required for any export of nuclear materials to China.
“This action was taken to improve oversight and control over small amounts of these materials,” said an NRC spokesperson.
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With the new rule, BIS is expanding the scope of nuclear-related export controls applicable to China, reasoning that the change is necessary to “protect U.S. national security and foreign policy interests by imposing a license requirement to China and Macau on items that could contribute to nuclear activities of concern.”
This is just the latest move by the administration to draw a line of separation between the U.S. and China on traded materials. Earlier this month, President Joe Biden issued an executive order banning U.S. investments flowing into China’s technology sectors, including semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence. And just last year, the Biden administration issued a broad set of prohibitions on exports to China of semiconductor chips and other technologies.
