The 2012 Nuclear Security Summit opens Monday in Seoul. As a major country in nuclear energy development, China has always attached great importance to nuclear security, and actively participated in international cooperation against nuclear terrorism. The country will be bringing its voice and proposals to this year’s summit.

China says it will illustrate its nuclear security policies and efforts at the international summit. South Korea is the second country to host the world summit after the United States in 2010. Seoul says the summit this time will focus on the security of nuclear material and facilities.

Guo Xiaobing, associate research professor of Institute of Arms Control and Security Studies, said, "The summit is likely to pay more attention to nuclear facilities due to the Fukushima accident in Japan. Although strictly speaking that was a safety issue, it also revealed security loopholes, that could have been taken advantage of during a terrorist attack."

China will make nuclear energy the foundation of its power-generation system in the next 10 to 20 years. Unlike some European countries such as Germany and Italy, which have abandoned such development in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, China as a rapidly industrializing country has come to rely on nuclear development for its energy needs. But the Chinese government has also beefed up protection efforts.

Guo Xiaobing said, "At the first nuclear security summit in Washington two years ago, China and the US agreed to strengthen cooperation in nuclear nonproliferation and security. China now is building a nuclear administration center with the US, outside Beijing for training purposes. We’ve also held several training projects for neighbouring countries with the IAEA in recent years."

Although the first summit in Washington set high expectations for a world without nuclear weapons, the world remains at danger to proliferation, due to existing plutonium and highly enriched uranium stockpiles scattered across the globe, an amount that could produce 130 thousand nuclear weapons. China launched its first successful nuclear test nearly 50 years ago, but has also actively called for the destruction of all nuclear weapons.

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