Don't worry USA is going to slap China back down
U.S., Hanoi in Nuclear Talks
http://www.smh.com.au/world/vietnam-in-nuclear-talks-with-us-20100806-11ojj.html
Vietnam Plan to Enrich Uranium May Undercut Nonproliferation Efforts, Rile China
By JAY SOLOMON
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is in advanced negotiations to share nuclear fuel and technology with Vietnam in a deal that would allow Hanoi to enrich its own uranium—terms that critics on Capitol Hill say would undercut the more stringent demands the U.S. has been making of its partners in the Middle East.
The State Department-led negotiations could unsettle China, which shares hundreds of miles of border with Vietnam. It is the latest example of the U.S.'s renewed assertiveness in South and Southeast Asia, as Washington strengthens ties with nations that have grown increasingly wary of Beijing's growing regional might.
U.S. officials familiar with the matter say negotiators have given a full nuclear-cooperation proposal to the communist country and former Cold War foe, and have started briefing House and Senate foreign-relations committees. A top U.S. official briefed on the negotiation said China hadn't been consulted on the talks. "It doesn't involve China," the official said.
Some counterproliferation experts and U.S. lawmakers briefed on the talks say the deal also marks a step backward in Washington's recent nonproliferation efforts, pointing to a key proviso that would allow Hanoi to produce nuclear fuel on its own soil.
Both the Obama and George W. Bush administrations had been requiring that countries interested in nuclear cooperation with the U.S. renounce the right to enrich uranium in-country for civilian purposes, a right provided to signatories of the United Nations' Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The technologies required to produce fuel for power reactors can also be used to create atomic weapons, raising proliferation fears.
U.S. officials have hailed a nuclear-cooperation agreement that President Barack Obama signed last year with the United Arab Emirates as a nonproliferation model, because the Arab country agreed to purchase all of its nuclear fuel from the international market. The Obama administration is currently negotiating a nuclear pact with Jordan in which Washington is also demanding that the country commit to not developing an indigenous nuclear-fuel cycle.
The senior U.S. official briefed on the Vietnam talks said the State Department is setting a different standard for Hanoi, as the Middle East is viewed as posing a greater proliferation risk than Asia. "Given our special concerns about Iran and the genuine threat of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, we believe the U.A.E....agreement is a model for the region," said the U.S. official. "These same concerns do not specifically apply in Asia. We will take different approaches region by region and country by country."
Vuong Huu Tan, director of the Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute, a government office, said Vietnamese and U.S. officials reached an initial agreement on nuclear cooperation in March and hope to finalize the pact later this year. He said Vietnam didn't plan to enrich uranium, "as it is sensitive to Vietnam to do so."
Atomic Dance
U.S. nuclear-cooperation deals' terms vary by country:
South Korea. Seoul is seeking rights to reprocess spent fuel as it renegotiates its 1974 deal that expires in 2014.
Egypt. Deal struck in 1982 doesn't allow for reprocessing of spent fuel. Like most deals over the decades, it is silent on the issue of uranium enrichment, which has increasingly emerged as a proliferation threat.
India. Pact from 2009 requires New Delhi to separate military and civilian nuclear programs, but allows for the reprocessing of spent fuel.
Congressional staff and nonproliferation experts briefed on the negotiations have been quick to criticize the State Department's position as a rollback of a key Obama administration nonproliferation platform. They also say Washington's position exposes it to criticism from Arab and developing countries that the U.S. is employing a double standard in pursuing its nuclear policies.
This could cause Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other nations currently pursuing cooperation agreements with Washington to balk at accepting the same tough terms as the U.A.E.
"It's ironic...as nonproliferation is one of the president's top goals that the U.A.E. model is not being endorsed here," said a senior Arab official whose government is pursuing nuclear power. "People will start to see a double standard, and it will be a difficult policy to defend in the future."
Nonproliferation experts also challenge the State Department's argument that Asia poses any less of a proliferation threat than the Middle East. They note that North Korea has actively been spreading dual-use technologies to countries such as Myanmar in recent years. Japan is believed to have the technologies to quickly assemble nuclear weapons if the political decision were made.
"After the U.S. set such a good example with the U.A.E., the Vietnam deal not only sticks out, it could drive a stake through the heart of the general effort to rein in the spread of nuclear fuel-making," said Henry Sokolski, executive director of Washington's Nonproliferation Education Center, a public policy think tank.
Vietnam signed an initial memorandum of understanding with the Bush administration in 2001 to pursue cooperation with the U.S. on securing fissile materials and developing civilian nuclear power. The Obama administration has accelerated talks with Hanoi in recent months aimed at completing a deal to allow for the exchange of know-how and cooperation in security, storage and educational areas. It would also allow U.S. firms such as General Electric Co. and Bechtel Corp. to sell nuclear components and reactors to Vietnam, according to U.S. officials.
President Barack Obama welcomes Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington April 12.
"If we're able to have U.S. companies and technologies in play in Vietnam this gives the ability to exert some leverage," said the U.S. official briefed on the negotiations. "If we shut ourselves out, others may have different standards."
U.S. officials stressed that any agreement with Vietnam will require that Hanoi's nuclear installations be under close oversight by the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. This is seen as insuring Vietnam's nuclear materials aren't diverted for military purposes.
The Vietnamese are studying the agreement's final draft and further talks are expected in the fall, said American diplomats.
The Obama administration has sought to significantly raise the U.S.'s profile in South and Southeast Asia amid concerns that China has begun to economically and politically dominate the region.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Hanoi last month and noted growing U.S.-Vietnamese cooperation on a range of security, economic and environmental issues. Mrs. Clinton backed Hanoi's position at a regional security forum that calls for establishing an international legal process to solve territorial disputes in the South China Sea. China attacked Mrs. Clinton's position as threatening Beijing's security interests.
"The Obama Administration is prepared to take the U.S.-Vietnam relationship to the next level," Mrs. Clinton said while in Hanoi. "We see this relationship not only as important on its own merits, but as part of a strategy aimed at enhancing American engagement in the Asia Pacific."
Tensions between Washington and Beijing have heated up again in recent weeks after relations between the two countries seemed to have stabilized in the spring.
U.S. officials this week said they haven't been briefing Beijing, or seeking its approval, while conducting the nuclear talks with Vietnam. "This is a negotiation between the U.S. and Vietnam," said the senior U.S. official. "We don't ask China to approve issues that are in our own strategic interest."
Officials at China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
The U.S. has taken other steps in recent months to strengthen its ties to South and Southeast Asian nations historically wary of Chinese influence.
Last month, the Pentagon reestablished ties with Indonesia's special forces command, known as Kopassus, after severing them in 1999 due to its alleged human-rights abuses. The U.S. also finalized a nuclear-cooperation agreement with India last week, which allows New Delhi to reprocess U.S.-origin nuclear fuels.
Some governments have criticized the India deal in ways similar to the concern being voiced about the Vietnam arrangement—that it illustrates a U.S. double standard. U.S. officials argue that the deal with India, already a nuclear-weapons state, allows for greater international oversight.
In addition to the South China Sea dispute, the U.S. and China have sparred over the proper response to North Korea's alleged sinking in March of a South Korean naval vessel, the Cheonan. The Obama administration has also publicly opposed China's plans to sell two nuclear-power reactors to Pakistan. Washington says the sale would violate Beijing's commitments to the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a Vienna-based body that seeks to control the spread of nuclear technologies.
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