Leading Republicans are urging the White House to clamp down on nuclear cooperation between Russia and China following reports that Moscow’s state-owned nuclear energy company is supplying highly enriched uranium to Beijing.
In a letter sent Thursday to U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, the chairmen of the House Armed Services, Foreign Affairs, and Intelligence Committees expressed concern that Russia’s Rosatom is supplying uranium to Chinese fast breeder reactors.
These facilities are used to produce plutonium that could help China increase its stockpile of nuclear warheads.
“We call on the administration to consider this cooperation for what it is, a direct threat to American security and more evidence that Russia and China are working in tandem against the United States,” Mike Rogers’ letter said. , Michael McCaul and Michael Turner.
“The administration should use all the tools at its disposal to stop the dangerous cooperation of Rosatom and the PRC,” he added.
Last month, the Biden administration sanctioned three Rosatom subsidiaries, saying they were part of Moscow’s broader effort to use nuclear energy resources to exert political and economic pressure on its customers around the world.
The state-owned civilian nuclear power conglomerate would also supply Russia’s arms industry, helping to fuel Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Lawmakers welcomed the initial sanctions measures but urged the White House to apply additional sanctions and export controls to limit Rosatom’s activities. The US National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Rosatom’s pivotal role in helping the Russian military circumvent the international sanctions regime and its support for China’s strategic nuclear buildup are threats to US national security,” McCaul told the Financial Times. “It is high time to use the tools at our disposal to stop these destructive actions.”
John Plumb, assistant secretary of defense for space policy, told the armed services committee last week that nuclear cooperation between Russia and China was “very troubling”.
“There is no denying that breeder reactors are plutonium and plutonium is for weapons,” he said. “The department is concerned, and of course this also aligns with our concerns about China’s further expansion of its nuclear forces, because you need more plutonium for more weapons.”
US military officials have repeatedly warned against China’s nuclear weapons ambitions, saying it has accelerated its nuclear expansion in recent years. According to the latest Pentagon report to Congress on China’s military, Beijing has developed 400 nuclear warheads and is on track to expand its arsenal to 1,500 weapons by the middle of the next decade.
The report also highlighted the importance of weapons-grade plutonium to China’s nuclear program and specifically warned against China’s fast breeder reactors.
China pushed back against Washington’s concerns and insisted it had fulfilled its nonproliferation obligations.
Concerns about Sino-Russian nuclear cooperation come at an already difficult time in relations between Washington and Beijing, particularly after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last year, and the downing of a suspected Chinese spy balloon by the United States in February.
Anthony Ruggiero, a former NSC official who worked on proliferation issues and now works at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said any effort to crack down on Rosatom’s activities will require significant cooperation with allies and partners. Americans.
“There is no easy solution. This is going to require a deep dive into Rosatom’s current business, working with our allies to understand who the alternative suppliers are.
