The publication Bloomberg writes that on December 12, 2022, the Russian “Rosatom” supplied China with 6.47 tons of uranium at one time, and during September-December last year, a record 25 tons of uranium.
The Chinese need this nuclear fuel to run the strategically important CFR-600 research reactor, which will produce weapons-grade plutonium. And thus, in just 3 months last year, the Russian Federation delivered to the PRC 6 times more materials for the creation of nuclear weapons than the USA and the IAEA managed to remove in the last 30 years.
China paid almost $400 million for materials from Rosatom, and these supplies will help the Chinese to increase their nuclear arsenal by as much as 4 times over the next 12 years (or until 2035).
It is important here that such information was confirmed to journalists in the Pentagon. In this story, it was impossible to interfere with supplies from the Russians to the PRC, which threatened the United States militarily.
Therefore, we can assume that the supply of nuclear materials for the Chinese atomic program may be part of the agreements between Beijing and Moscow on the supply of weapons for the Russian army.
However, there may be such an amendment. China will be able to directly produce weapons-grade plutonium with the help of the CFR-600 reactor no earlier than two years when the spent nuclear fuel processing plant is put into operation. Who exactly will help the Chinese construct such a plant has not yet been revealed.
But it is quite likely that the Russians can “light up” here too. And that the agreements between China and Russia on the possible supply of weapons may be “stretched” depending on the rhythms of the supply of technologies to increase the nuclear arsenal.
