A Senior official said yesterday that China is committed to improving nuclear security, including the threat of cyber attacks on power plants.[Special coverage]
Xu Dazhe, who chairs the China Atomic Energy Authority, was briefing the media as world leaders gathered in Washington for a summit on preventing nuclear terrorism and countering nuclear smuggling.
Xu said China is working with other major nuclear powers including the US on control and safety measures.
Cyber attacks "present a very serious threat to our power industry, financial industry and nuclear facilities," he said.
President Barack Obama, the summit's host, will also seek to smooth over tensions with China over cyber security and maritime disputes as he and President Xi Jinping meet on the sidelines. The summit also offers Obama his last major chance to focus global attention on disparate nuclear security threats before his term ends early next year.
Though nuclear terrorism and the Islamic State group top this year's agenda, concerns about North Korea's nuclear weapons program are also commanding focus as the two-day summit gets under way.
Obama was planning a joint meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye, two US treaty allies deeply concerned about North Korea. It's a reprise of a similar meeting the three countries held in 2014 during the last nuclear security summit in The Hague.
Xi is due to address the opening plenary session today to expound China's nuclear security policy, present China's new measures and achievements in the area and put forward practical proposals on further beefing up global nuclear security.
He will also take part in a leaders' meeting on the Iranian nuclear issue under a sexpartite framework commonly known as P5+1, which comprises the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — plus Germany, and reached a historic agreement with Tehran in July last year over the latter's controversial nuclear program.
The US and South Korea have been discussing whether to deploy a US missile defense system called THAAD, or Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, in South Korea to counter any threat from North Korea. China has resisted that step out of concern it would give the US radar coverage over Chinese territory.
In North Korea, meanwhile, the government has been condemning the US and South Korea, while warning it could launch a pre-emptive strike against South Korea or even the US mainland at any time.
For years, security crises in the Middle East have overshadowed Obama's goal of expanding US influence and engagement in Asia, with the North Korean threat another unwanted distraction. Though the US and China have struck agreements on climate change, they've remained at odds on many economic issues. Obama has also been unable to get Congress to ratify the Asia-Pacific free trade deal his administration painstakingly negotiated.
Obama also plans to meet French President Francois Hollande amid concerns about terrorism in Europe following the Paris and Brussels attacks.
