Chinese leader backs uranium sales to India [March 30, 2006]

CHINESE Premier Wen Jiabao has given conditional backing for India's acquisition of uranium for the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

"India is a friendly neighbour of China, which approves India's co-operating with other countries in nuclear power generation," Mr Wen told The Australian in an exclusive interview on the eve of his arrival in Australia on Saturday.

Australia is to send a delegation to New Delhi and Washington to seek out details of a nuclear technology-sharing agreement struck by US President George W.Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh three weeks ago which could pave the way for the eventual sale of uranium by Australia and other US allies to the subcontinental nuclear power.

Australia, with 40 per cent of the world's uranium reserves, is a potential leading partner in supplying uranium to India, as it will be to China when Mr Wen signs two ground-breaking agreements next week.

The agreements will permit Australian uranium exports to China and allow Chinese miners to explore and produce uranium in Australia.

The rapid economic growth of both China and India will see their contributions to global greenhouse gas emissions - already at 20 per cent - soar in the next two decades.

China, which produces 70per cent of its energy needs from coal, aims to build 30 nuclear power stations in the next 15 years, quadrupling its nuclear energy production. India aims for a lower but still substantial target of about half that nuclear generation.

Mr Wen - who will visit Perth for talks with Premier Alan Carpenter about China's demand for resources, and then Canberra - said: "The peaceful use of nuclear energy for power generation is an important means to develop clean energy and reduce pollution, especially the emission of greenhouse gases. That is why many countries are going in for nuclear energy and have entered into co-operation in this field."

While approving India's nuclear energy program, he added that relevant parties - including, by implication, Australia - should honour their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which limits uranium sales to other signatories. China has signed the NPT, India has not.

In the interview in Beijing, Mr Wen, the first Chinese Premier to visit Australia since Li Peng in 1988, said he wanted to push Australia to the forefront of China's partners in the Asia Pacific region.

He will seek a strengthened political and strategic dialogue, anchored by a program of regular leaders' summits - something that Beijing has only previously established with Washington.

He said he would present a list of such proposals to Prime Minister John Howard, starting with charting the future course for Sino-Australia relations.

He downplayed speculation that China was concerned about the formation of the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue between the US, Japan and Australia.

"We believe that countries which are allies of the US can also be China's friends, and Australia is one of them."

His targets for the Australian visit include setting a timetable for, and accelerating, the free trade negotiations, providing them with a crucial political impetus as they move from information exchange into the tougher terrain of pushing for concessions.

He stressed the "ground-breaking" nature of the talks. "This is the first time for China to conduct FTA negotiations with a developed country". But he flagged at the same time, "difficulties" in making agricultural concessions.

The Premier's plan to embrace Australia follows Mr Howard's remark on Monday that the world's centre of gravity was experiencing an historic shift towards China and India.

Mr Wen, who will leave Canberra on Tuesday for Nadi and Wellington, said that realising his vision for China and Australia meant building a comprehensive relationship featuring win-win outcomes for the new century.