Published on September 24, 2019.
Based on Toyohito Matsuoka’s essay “China’s Ambition for World Domination Through Nuclear Power,” published in the September 2018 issue of the monthly magazine WiLL, this article discusses China’s rapid nuclear-power development, Japan’s nuclear stagnation, and the consequences of anti-nuclear reporting by Asahi Shimbun and NHK.

September 24, 2019.
Readers who read this essay will realize that it is no exaggeration to say that Asahi Shimbun and NHK’s anti-nuclear reporting, and their reporting against the restart of nuclear power plants, also served to benefit China.
This is a chapter published on July 15, 2019, under the title: The following is from an essay titled “China’s Ambition for World Domination Through Nuclear Power,” published by Toyohito Matsuoka, Director of the First Research Department of the Japan Electric Power Information Center, in the September 2018 issue of the monthly magazine WiLL.
The following is from an essay titled “China’s Ambition for World Domination Through Nuclear Power,” published by Toyohito Matsuoka, Director of the First Research Department of the Japan Electric Power Information Center, in the September 2018 issue of the monthly magazine WiLL.
Readers who read this essay will realize that it is no exaggeration to say that Asahi Shimbun and NHK’s anti-nuclear reporting, and their reporting against the restart of nuclear power plants, also served to benefit China.
Furthermore, when one considers that a considerable portion of the solar-power panels they praise so highly are occupied by Chinese-made and South Korean products,
their evil, or rather their anti-Japanese nature, has reached its extreme.
…All the more so because, as I have already stated, solar power accounts for only 3 percent of Japan’s current total power generation of 11,000 kW.
Emphasis within the text, other than headings, is mine.
Government-led promotion of nuclear power, a wide variety of next-generation reactors, and full-scale human-resource development……the gap between Japan and China only continues to widen.
The Japan-China Gap Over Nuclear Power.
In June of this year, nuclear-power people around the world raised voices of surprise at the big news that arrived one after another from China.
On June 6, Unit 1 of the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant in Guangdong Province, built by the French nuclear giant Framatome, formerly Areva, and Électricité de France, EDF, together with China General Nuclear Power Group, CGN, reached criticality, meaning that nuclear fission in the reactor proceeds continuously, and began transmitting power on the 29th of the same month.
The European Pressurized Reactor, EPR, counted among the most advanced nuclear power plants, made a major advance toward the start of commercial operation, which would be the first in the world.
On the 21st of the same month, Unit 1 of the Sanmen Nuclear Power Plant in Zhejiang Province, under construction by Westinghouse, WH, formerly under Toshiba, and the nuclear engineering company State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation, SNPTC, together with China National Nuclear Corporation, CNNC, also achieved first criticality and began transmitting power from the 30th.
That plant uses the AP1000, for which WH has obtained final design approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and here too the world’s first commercial operation came into view.
Furthermore, Unit 1 of the Haiyang Nuclear Power Plant in Shandong Province, China’s second AP1000 construction project, was also approved on the 21st for fuel loading, the insertion of fuel assemblies into the reactor, and is expected soon to reach first criticality.
In all of these nuclear power plants, while projects in Europe and the United States have suffered major delays, China has taken the lead.
It can be said that this impressed upon the world the reality that only China’s nuclear-power development is advancing steadily.
For a long time, Japan was the world’s third-largest nuclear-power-generating country after the United States and France.
In 1998, the nuclear-power share of total domestic electricity generation reached 36.4 percent, and even in 2010 it was 29.2 percent.
However, the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant caused by the tsunami damage from the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011 had a major impact on the business environment surrounding Japan’s nuclear power generation.
Not only the six reactors at Fukushima Daiichi, but also nuclear power plants throughout the country were expected to require enormous investment in order to comply with the new regulatory standards enforced in 2013, and decisions to decommission old reactors were made one after another for reasons such as investment recovery, future predictability, and other economic factors.
As of the end of June 2018, including the nine reactors that had complied with the new regulatory standards and restarted, there were 39 reactors that had not been decided for decommissioning and that might move toward operation in the future, with a total installed capacity of 38.566 million kW.
This was a sharp decrease of more than 10 million kW from the 54 reactors and 48.847 million kW of March 2011.
“Meanwhile, in China, after the Fukushima Daiichi accident, 25 reactors, totaling 25.987 million kW, newly began operation, and the share of nuclear power in total electricity generation became 3.9 percent in 2017.
As of the end of June 2018, the number of reactors in commercial operation in China had reached 38, with an installed capacity of 36.867 million kW, and commercial operation of the EPR and AP1000 introduced at the beginning is also expected.
In Japan, there has also been an announcement of a plan to decommission the four reactors at Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant, and it is certain that China will overtake Japan within this year and leap forward to become the world’s third-largest nuclear-power-generating country.”