Japan’s Civil Nuclear Deal With India

In a rapidly developing and energy-hungry nation such as India, the promise of nuclear power is still to be realized. The 19 nuclear power plants in operation generate a power output of less than 5,000MW which is grossly inadequate. India, however, has developed an ambitious plan to scale up its nuclear power generating capability to 63,000MW by 2032. Thanks to the Indo-US nuclear deal, this mega-plan is slowly taking shape. Two American firms, GE-Hitachi and Westinghouse, a subsidiary of Toshiba, are set to build two new nuclear reactors in India. Since Japanese firms are involved, business is on hold unless and until the Japanese government too enters into a civilian nuclear deal with India. These conglomerates are thus eagerly waiting for the Japanese government to give the go-ahead. During his visit to Japan in October, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed a strong desire to accelerate negotiations on a civilian nuclear agreement between the two countries, which would enable the transfer of Japanese nuclear technology and materials to India. Given the strong anti-nuclear sentiments among the Japanese people, Prime Minister Singh reiterated India’s commitment to a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing and emphasized his country’s constructive role in nuclear non-proliferation. Yet, Japan’s fundamental stance – that it will nullify the agreement should India conduct another nuclear test – remains unchanged.

The fact that India is a nuclear-armed state has been a big obstacle for Japan in concluding negotiations. India is neither a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) nor the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). As Japan is the only nation in human history which has suffered from an atomic catastrophe, the Japanese media and public opinion remain hostile towards nuclear cooperation with non-NPT signatory states. More at:
http://www.eurasiareview.com/201011179735/japans-civil-nuclear-deal-with-india.html