TNAG-2981-FCO40-1473-Guangdong-nuclear-power-station-project-1982 — Page 187

Mi Danis

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(Than Thor

HKG

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in Stew

дое

Interesting

Commercial Department Peking

c/o Diplomatic Service Mails Office

Osborn Barracks Waterloo Road Kowloon Hong Kong Commercial Department

British Embassy

11 Kuang Hua Lu Peking People's Republic of China Cable Prodrome Peking

A Havelock Esq Dept of Industry Ashdown House

123 Victoria St LONDON

SW1

Telephone 521961/2/3/4

Your reference

Our referencu

Date 5 April 1982

HITH 166||

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ICGE

No

-21/4 Af?114

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Din Harchiad;

GUANGDONG NUCLEAR PROJECT

4

hu Ying continues

to book is the U.S.

The newly arrived American Commercial Counsellor asked to see me last week about the Guangdong nuclear project. You should be aware that Mel Searls worked for many years for SO Eastern, a subsidiary of Exxon, and one of the partners with the Kowloon Electric Fower Company in the development of Castle Peak B in Hong Kong. He said that he had sat on the Board in Hong Kong, and was a friend of Stones and of Lord Kadoorie.

Juthan

Searls said that Lu Ying had recently approached the Americans and told them that the Chinese really wished to have Westinghouse technology for the Guangdong project. They did not wish to have the French version of it, as that was already out of date. They wanted the newest form either direct or through the British licensee NNC. Lu Ying told Searls that he had been talking to NNC.

Searls said that the wording of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act prevented the US from exporting nuclear, technology to China unless the Chinese were prepared to observe safeguard procedures which all concerned knew they were not prepared to do.. As China was already a nuclear weapon state, these. provisions were absurd, but to get then altered would require Congressional action which, in the present state of Sino- * American relations, was probably impossible, and in any case could not be achieved in time if the Chinese made up their minds to proceed with the project before Mrs Thatcher's visit in September. As we all know, Westinghouse is authorised to allow its technology to be exported by Framatome, to third countries. At the moment there is no such authorisation, according to Searls for NNC, but he thought that this could be achieved by administrative action on the part of the US Government without reference to Congress. He had asked the Department of Commerce to set the wheels in motion as soon as possible, and was glad to learn from me that we were likely to make an approach through the Embassy in Washington in the same sense quite soon.

/Searls

19.4

16

CONFIDENTIAL

1