Published on July 15, 2019.
Through an essay by Matsuoka Toyohito published in the monthly magazine WiLL, this article introduces the reality of China’s nuclear-power business as a state-owned, military-derived, and vertically integrated system combining technology development, design, and construction. It records the origins of CNNC, CGN, and SPIC, as well as the structure in which major equipment is manufactured by the five major manufacturers, including Shanghai Electric Group, Dongfang Electric Group, and Harbin Electric Group.

July 15, 2019.
Major equipment is manufactured, based on the designs of each nuclear-power company, by the five major manufacturers, including Shanghai Electric Group, Dongfang Electric Group, Harbin Electric Group, China First Heavy Industries, and China National Erzhong Group, among others.
Including the monthly magazine HANADA, Japanese citizens who can read printed words must go to the nearest bookstore right now and buy them.
The reason is that by paying only 840 yen a month for each of these monthly magazines, which are filled with genuine essays conveying the truth about the condition of Japan and the world, one can learn the truth of matters that can absolutely never be understood merely by paying more than 5,000 yen a month to subscribe to The Asahi Shimbun and the like, and by watching the news programs of their broadcasting stations, or NHK and others, which not only go along with Asahi but also broadcast terrible biased reporting based on a childish and poor masochistic view of history and clearly under the influence of Chongryon and others.
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Japan’s nuclear-power operators are ten private electric power companies.
In 1960, the Japan Atomic Power Company began construction of the Tokai Nuclear Power Plant, which started operation in 1965.
Then nine major electric power companies, including Kansai Electric Power and Tokyo Electric Power, joined, and Electric Power Development is also constructing the Ōma Nuclear Power Plant.
On the other hand, construction and maintenance work for nuclear power, including technological development, plant design, equipment manufacturing, and installation, is handled by nuclear-plant manufacturers such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Hitachi, and Toshiba.
By contrast, China’s nuclear-power business differs greatly from Japan’s system in that, first, it is a state-run business; second, it is rooted in the Ministry of Nuclear Industry, or the ministry of nuclear power, which handled the military sector; and third, the operators themselves hold technology development, design, and construction divisions within their organizations and play central roles in construction work as well.
China started developing nuclear-weapons technology in 1955.
In 1964 it succeeded in a nuclear test, but the introduction of nuclear power generation came later.
China’s first nuclear power plant was the Qinshan Phase I Nuclear Power Plant in Zhejiang Province, a pressurized-water light-water reactor of the CNP300 type with an output of 310,000 kW, which first reached criticality in 1991.
China advances under government leadership.
China has three nuclear-power operators: China National Nuclear Corporation, or CNNC, a direct business of the government’s nuclear sector; China General Nuclear Power Corporation, or CGN, a state-owned business that began in Guangdong Province based on French technology; and State Power Investment Corporation, or SPIC, a state-owned company established by the government’s power sector.
CNNC’s predecessor was China National Nuclear Corporation, which separated and became independent from the Ministry of Nuclear Industry in 1989 as the operator of Qinshan Phase I Nuclear Power Plant, whose construction the Ministry of Nuclear Industry had begun in 1985.
Qinshan Phase I Nuclear Power Plant began commercial operation in 1994 with overseas support from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and others.
The company was reorganized in 1999 as China National Nuclear Corporation, or CNNC, and today, as a central company in the nuclear field, including fuel supply, it operates 18 reactors with an installed capacity of 15.4 million kW.
CGN’s predecessor was China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Corporation, established in 1994 as the operator of Units 1 and 2 of Guangdong Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant, built near Shenzhen in Guangdong Province with French-made pressurized-water reactors, or PWRs, M310 type, 984,000 kW × 2 units, construction started in 1987 and commercial operation began in 1994.
The company changed its name in 2013 to China General Nuclear Power Corporation, or CGN, and today is China’s largest nuclear-power operator, operating 20 reactors totaling 21.467 million kW.
SPIC was born in 2015 through the management integration of China Power Investment Corporation, or CPI, which inherited the stake invested by the national power sector, then the Ministry of Water Resources and Electric Power, in Qinshan Phase I Nuclear Power Plant, 10 percent, at the time of the separation of power generation and transmission in 2002, and State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation, or SNPTC, an engineering company established by the Chinese government in 2007 to introduce AP1000 technology from the United States.
SPIC is China’s fifth-largest power generation company, possessing a total power-generation capacity of 126.13 million kW, mainly from coal-fired power, and although its nuclear-power holdings remain at 4.48 million kW, including a 45 percent stake in Liaoning Province’s Hongyanhe Nuclear Power Plant, it is currently constructing Haiyang Nuclear Power Plant in Shandong Province, with two AP1000 units.
Furthermore, China’s nuclear-power operators have systems in which equipment design and construction divisions are held within their organizations, and in the case of CNNC, for plant design and engineering, it has China Nuclear Power Engineering Company and the Nuclear Power Institute of China under its control.
CGN also has China Nuclear Power Engineering Company under its umbrella and is working on technological development by absorbing French technology.
Meanwhile, SPIC has SNPTC and the Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute under its control.
Construction work had been centered on China Nuclear Engineering & Construction Group Corporation, or CNEC, which had become independent from CNNC, but in January 2018, the company was once again integrated into CNNC, strengthening the system.
Major equipment is manufactured, based on the designs of each nuclear-power company, by the five major manufacturers, including Shanghai Electric Group, Dongfang Electric Group, Harbin Electric Group, China First Heavy Industries, and China National Erzhong Group, among others.
This article continues.