Centrus Energy, DOE finalise HALEU contract

02 December 2022

The first phase of the USD150 million contract will see demonstration production of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) at Piketon by the end of 2023. Centrus says it could scale up the facility to commercial production capacity, given sufficient funding.

An AC100M centrifuge, in a black protective covering, positioned in an assembly stand (Image: Centrus)

The contract signed by Centrus subsidiary American Centrifuge Operating LLC (ACO) and the US Department of Energy (DOE) follows DOE's announcement in November that it had selected ACO for the competitively awarded, cost-shared contract which runs in two phases to 2024. The first phase - a USD30 million cost share contribution from Centrus matched by USD30 million from the DOE will cover the completion of construction of the demonstration cascade of AC100M advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges at the Ohio site, bringing it online and producing some 20 kilograms of 19.75% enriched HALEU by 31 December 2023. ACO will then continue production for a full year at an annual production rate of 900 kilograms of HALEU under the second phase of the contract.

Sustainable, commercial domestic production of HALEU - enriched to between 5% and 20% uranium-235 - will be needed to fuel most of the next-generation reactor advanced reactor designs. The DOE has projected a national need for more than 40 tonnes of HALEU before the end of the decade to support the current administration's goal of 100% clean electricity by 2035.

"Centrus is strongly committed to pioneering production of HALEU to support the deployment of the next generation of reactors and help meet the surging global demand for carbon-free energy," President and CEO Daniel Poneman said. "Bringing the demonstration cascade online and starting HALEU production represents a critical step toward restoring a domestic enrichment capability for the nation."

The contract also gives the DOE options to pay for up to nine additional years of production from the cascade beyond the base contract.

Centrus said further centrifuge cascades could be added to expand capacity at the facility, given "sufficient additional funding or offtake contracts". A full-scale HALEU cascade with a capacity of about 6,000 kilograms per year could be brought on line within about 42 months of securing funding, and additional cascades could be added every six months after that, the company said. Such expansion could support hundreds of jobs in the construction and operation of the plant as well as "thousands" of direct and indirect jobs across a "100% domestic" manufacturing supply chain, it added.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Refurbished OPG reactor cleared to begin fuel loading

02 December 2022

Canada's nuclear regulator has given Ontario Power Generation (OPG) the go-ahead to load fuel into Darlington unit 3 after removing the first regulatory hold-point for the refurbished reactor.

Darlington (Image: CNSC)

Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) Executive Vice-President and Chief Regulatory Operations Officer Ramzi Jammal notified OPG by letter that the OPG has met the conditions for the removal of the hold-point "and fuel may now be loaded into the Unit 3 core".

OPG is refurbishing all four Candu units at Darlington in a 10-year, CAD12.8 billion (currently about USD9.5 billion) project that will enable the reactors to operate for the next 30 years. Darlington 3 is the second unit at the site to undergo refurbishment: Darlington 2 has already been refurbished and returned to service in June 2020.

Refurbishment of a Candu reactor involves removing all the reactor's fuel and heavy water and isolating it from the rest of the power station before it is dismantled. Thousands of components, including those that are not accessible when the reactor is assembled, are inspected, and all 480 fuel channels and 960 feeder tubes are replaced during the high-precision rebuild. Reassembly of the Darlington 3's reactor core was completed in July.

Hold points are mandatory checkpoints where CNSC approval is required before the licensee - OPG - is allowed to move on to the next stage of the process to return the unit to operation. Each step ensures verification that all required testing had been properly done and that systems function as planned in safe condition. Three additional regulatory hold points must be removed before the unit can reach criticality and return to service.

The refurbishment of Darlington 3 began in September 2020, and is currently slated for completion in the first quarter of 2024. Refurbishment of unit 1 began in February this year, with completion expected in the second quarter of 2025. Preparations are under way for work on Darlington 4 to begin in the third quarter of 2023.

OPG has also applied to the CNSC for a licence to construct Canada's first grid-scale small modular reactor at Darlington, which is the only site in Canada currently licensed for new nuclear build. The company has selected GE Hitachi's BWRX-300 design and has previously said it expects to make a construction decision by the end of 2024 with a preliminary target of 2028 for plant operations.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Viewpoint: Bilbao y León reflects on nuclear's presence at COP27 

29 November 2022

Sharm El-Sheikh marked the first time the global nuclear community had a large pavilion in the Blue Zone, at the heart of COP27, writes World Nuclear Association Director General Sama Bilbao y León. The pavilion, a partnership between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), World Nuclear Association and other nuclear organisations, was a focal point where people could visit and enquire about nuclear energy and the nuclear industry.

Sama Bilbao y León at COP27 (Image: World Nuclear Association)

But most of all, the pavilion allowed us to host a robust programme of panel discussions, speeches, film screenings, presentations and interviews where we presented the reasons why nuclear energy is - and needs to continue to be - an essential piece of the climate change solution.

From the point of view of the political negotiations, the main development at COP27 was the agreement to set up a Loss and Damage fund, that would provide finance to poorer countries affected by the negative impacts of climate change. On the other hand, it was acknowledged that very little progress was made on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Without such progress the impacts of climate change will only get worse. Governments need to take action with pragmatic, implementable action plans to go from where we are right now to where we need to be.

There was one promising development. Where earlier drafts of the Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan referred only to deep, rapid and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions through "increase(d) renewable energy" the final text referred more broadly to "low-emission and renewable energy". This clearly includes nuclear energy. However, the continued omission of text referring to the need for more nuclear energy in the COP agreements remains a failing driven by ill-conceived political obstruction.

On our side, we at World Nuclear Association will continue working together with our members, with the global nuclear industry, to put in place the frameworks that are needed to make the most of the existing nuclear fleet, and to accelerate the deployment of new nuclear globally.

This includes working together with governments, with regulators and other international organisations. This also means supporting the nuclear industry as it jointly develops a secure global supply chain that is truly global and able to help us deliver nuclear energy at the speed and scale needed.

And this also includes working together with policymakers, to help them put in place bold, actionable, pragmatic, technology-neutral policies that are going to recognise the essential role of nuclear energy, and are going to incentivise long-term planning and investment.

This also includes working together with the finance community, because it is essential that nuclear power is recognised as an investable, sustainable asset.

At the pavilion we spoke with global leaders, with policymakers, with activists and with the finance community, as well as with members of civil society who just came to learn more about nuclear energy. As this was very successful, we still can do much more to make sure that nuclear energy is part of the mainstream climate change discussion.

World Nuclear Association, in cooperation with the Canadian Nuclear Association, the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (JAIF), Nucleareurope and the Nuclear Energy Institute, curated a programme of ten events covering issues such as finance, innovation in nuclear, decarbonisation beyond electricity, and the experiences of women working in clean energy. I was particularly pleased to host our final event where I interviewed a very diverse range of energy experts from the Clean Air Taskforce, the World Energy Council, the International Hydro Association, Women in Renewable Energy, influencers as filmmaker Tyson Culver as well as nuclear colleagues from Urenco, Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, Rolls-Royce, Pillsbury and JAIF.

I was also pleased to participate in two official United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change side events, one of which brought together three UN organisations - IAEA, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation - to recognise the essential role of nuclear energy in addressing decarbonisation and sustainable development. In the second, leaders of the nuclear trade associations spoke after an opening interview with US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

I also had the opportunity to contribute to an event organised by the Egyptian Nuclear Power Plant Authority highlighting the El Dabaa nuclear power plant as an indispensable element of the clean energy and economic development future of Egypt.

While we invited a broad range of people to take part in our events, at future COPs we need to do more to take our messages to other pavilions and venues to make sure we are not just speaking to ourselves, and are getting our message to a broader audience.

We must do this because I truly think that nuclear energy offers a golden opportunity to decarbonise not just electricity, but the entire economy, and do it in a way that is cost-effective and equitable. With nuclear energy, we can provide abundant, affordable, clean, 24/7 energy to everyone, everywhere.

UK

Three-year extension agreed to Hinkley Point C contract

02 December 2022

EDF, China General Nuclear (CGN) and the UK government have agreed a three-year extension to the contract for difference (CfD) for the Hinkley Point C (HPC) nuclear power plant under construction in Somerset, England. While the 'long-stop date' has now been moved to November 2036, EDF maintains the plant's start-up schedule remains unchanged.

The Hinkley Point C construction site, pictured in November 2021 (Image: EDF Energy)

In October 2013, a price of GBP92.50 (USD112.82) per MWh was agreed as the strike price for the HPC project, meaning the government will top up EDF's income to this level if wholesale prices are lower. EDF will have to pay money to the government if market prices are higher. From 2025-2029, EDF gets a 35-year CfD. After 2029 the CfD is reduced in value up to 2033 - the long-stop date - after which it could be cancelled for non-completion.

Under a deal agreed in October 2015, CGN took a 33.5% stake in the project to construct Hinkley Point C, which comprises two EPR reactors. Under the deal, EDF and CGN also planned to build a replica EPR plant at Sizewell C in Suffolk and a new plant at Bradwell in Essex, using China's HPR1000 (Hualong One) reactor technology.

The Low Carbon Contracts Company (LCCC), the government's counterparty in the contract, announced on 29 November that the long-stop date had been extended from 1 November 2033 to 1 November 2036.

"The extension reflects LCCC's work with the HPC project over the last 20 months to understand the impacts of COVID-19, as well as the outcome of the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy's negotiations with CGN on the Sizewell C nuclear project," LCCC said.

"Extending the long-stop date will not impact the delivery date of the project," the LCCC was quoted by New Civil Engineer as saying. "The terms of the contract provide an incentive to complete commissioning as soon as possible."

On 29 November, the UK government announced it will invest GBP679 million and become a 50% partner with EDF in the Sizewell C project. The money, it said, "allows for China General Nuclear's exit from the project, including buy-out costs, any tax due and commercial arrangements".

Construction of Hinkley Point C - composed of two EPR reactors of 1630 MWe each - began in December 2018. Unit 1 of the plant was originally scheduled to start up by the end of 2025.

In January 2021, EDF said the start of electricity generation from unit 1 had been rescheduled to June 2026. Delays arising from the COVID-19 pandemic would also increase the cost of the project by GBP500 million to between GBP22 and 23 billion.

In May this year, following a review, EDF announced the start of electricity generation for HPC unit 1 is now expected in June 2027 and the project completion costs were now estimated in the range of GBP25 to 26 billion.

"Hinkley Point C's schedule was recently reviewed in detail and remains unchanged," said a spokesperson for Hinkley Point C. "The power station's clean, home-grown electricity is needed to provide Britain with secure and affordable energy and to help the country kick its dependency on gas. The team at Hinkley Point C is working hard to make the plant operational as soon as possible."

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Julian Assange appeals to European court over U.S. extradition

CGTN

WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange, who is battling extradition from Britain to the United States where he is wanted on criminal charges, has submitted an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the court confirmed on Friday.

Assange, 51, is wanted by U.S. authorities on 18 counts, including one under a spying act, relating to WikiLeaks' release of vast troves of confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables which Washington said had put lives in danger.

Britain has given the go-ahead for his extradition, but he has launched an appeal at London's High Court, with the first hearing expected early next year.

His legal team have also launched a case against Britain at the ECHR, which could potentially order the extradition to be blocked.

"We confirm that an application has been received," a statement from the court said.

Stella Assange, his wife, said she hoped the ECHR would not be needed to consider the case and that it could be resolved in Britain. If the case was taken to the ECHR, she said it "would be a sad day and a major disappointment."

The case has gained prominence this week with major media outlets that had originally worked with Assange over the leaked material writing an open letter to say his prosecution should end.

Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had raised the issue of Assange's release with U.S. officials, saying the matter should be brought to a close.

Cryptome Founder Asks to Be Indicted With Assange

John Young, the founder of the Cryptome website, has asked the U.S. Justice Department to also indict him as he published un-redacted State Dept. files before WikiLeaks did, reports Joe Lauria.



By Joe Lauria

Special to Consortium News
November 30, 2022

The founder of a U.S.-based website that earlier published the same un-redacted documents that WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange was later indicted for has invited the U.S. Department of Justice to make him a co-defendant with Assange.

“Cryptome published the decrypted unredacted State Department Cables on September 1, 2011 prior to publication of the cables by WikiLeaks,” John Young wrote in a Justice Department submission form, which Young posted on Twitter on Tuesday.

“No US official has contacted me about publishing the unredacted cables since cryptome published them,” he wrote. “I respectfully request that the Department of Justice add me as a co-defendant in the prosecution of Mr. Assange under the Espionage Act.”

Assange has been charged with possession and dissemination of classified information, some of the same material that Young possesses and disseminated.

Young founded Cryptome, which he calls a “free public library” in 1996. It was a precursor of WikiLeaks in publishing raw, classified and unclassified government documents on the internet.

Young testified at Assange’s extradition hearing in London in September 2020. His sworn statement says:


“I published on Cryptome.org unredacted diplomatic cables on September 1, 2011 under the URL https://cryptome.org/z/z.7z and that publication remains available at the present. … Since my publication on Cryptome.org of the unredacted diplomatic cables, no US law enforcement authority has notified me that this publication of the cables is illegal, consists or contributes to a crime in any way, nor have they asked for them to be removed.”

‘Harmed Informants’

A cornerstone of the Justice Department’s case against Assange is that he recklessly published State Department cables leaked to him by Army Intelligence Analyst Chelsea Manning, which, the U.S. says, endangered the lives of named U.S. informants.

Young is asking the Justice Department why he too hasn’t been prosecuted for publishing these names before Assange did.

 

Award-winning journalist Julian Assange.

At Manning’s court martial, Brig. Gen. Robert Carr, testified under oath that no one was actually harmed by the WikiLeaks releases. Then Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the leaks “awkward” and “embarrassing” but said they did only “fairly modest” damage to U.S. foreign interests.

Reuters reported in January 2011:

“Internal U.S. government reviews have determined that a mass leak of diplomatic cables caused only limited damage to U.S. interests abroad, despite the Obama administration’s public statements to the contrary.

A congressional official briefed on the reviews said the administration felt compelled to say publicly that the revelations had seriously damaged American interests in order to bolster legal efforts to shut down the WikiLeaks website and bring charges against the leakers.”

Assange was actually more concerned about redactions than the editors of his mainstream media partners who worked with him on publishing the releases.

Mark Davis, an Australian television journalist who documented Assange’s activities during the weekend in London before publication, said that while the other editors went home, Assange pulled all nighters to redact informants names.

Guardian Journalists & the Password

Two days before publication Assange wrote to the U.S. ambassador in London seeking help from “the United States Government to privately nominate any specific instances (record numbers or names) where it considers the publication of information would put individual persons at significant risk of harm that has not already been addressed.”

The U.S. responded by demanding that WikiLeaks stop publication of the cables and return those in its possession.

In the end, only a redacted version of the State Department Cables was published in November 2010 by WikiLeaks and its mainstream partners, The New York Times, The Guardian, El Pais, Le Monde and DER SPEIGEL.

This remained the case until a book was published by two Guardian journalists in February 2011, in which the password to the unredacted files mysteriously appears as part of a chapter heading. This went unnoticed, as WikiLeaks tried to keep it quiet, until a German publication named Freitag said it had the password in August 2011.

When Assange learned this he contacted the State Department to try to warn them about the impending publication of informants’ names. He was rebuffed. This is shown in a scene in Laura Poitras’ film Risk.

PirateBay published the unredacted files first and then Cryptome did on Sept. 1, 2011. It was the next day that Assange decided to publish the unredacted files so that informants could search for their names and try to get to safety. This was before it was known that no one was harmed,

“The notion that Mr. Assange knowingly put lives at risk by dumping unredacted cables is knowingly inaccurate,” said Assange lawyer Mark Summers at the extradition hearing in February 2020.

The publishers and editors of WikiLeaks‘ partners oppose Assange’s Espionage Act indictment and on Monday wrote an open letter to the Biden administration urging the case be dropped.

Having published WikiLeaks classified documents, are they ready to take the same step as Young, a U.S. citizen, who is daring the DOJ to indict him too under the U.S. Espionage Act, for doing the exact thing Assange, an Australian, did, only earlier?

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He can be reached at joelauria@consortiumnews.com and followed on Twitter @unjoe

U.S. whistleblower Snowden gets a Russian passport -TASS

Fri, December 2, 2022 

Former contractor of U.S. National Security Agency Snowden speaks via video link at the New Knowledge educational online forum in Moscow

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who exposed the scale of secret surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA), has sworn an oath of allegiance to Russia and received a Russian passport, TASS reported on Friday.

"Yes, he got [a passport], he took the oath," Anatoly Kucherena, Snowden's lawyer, told the state news agency TASS.

"This is still a criminal investigative matter," White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Friday, referring any questions about the report on Snowden to the U.S. Department of Justice, which declined to comment.

U.S. authorities have for years wanted Snowden returned to the United States to face a criminal trial on espionage charges.

President Vladimir Putin in September granted Russian citizenship to Snowden, who fled the United States after leaking secret files that revealed the extensive eavesdropping activities of the United States and its allies.

"I'm in Russia because the White House intentionally canceled my passport to trap me here. They downed the President of Bolivia's diplomatic aircraft to prevent me from leaving, and continue to interfere with my freedom of movement to this day," Snowden, 39, said on Twitter on Friday, referring to events from 2013.

Snowden was referring an incident in July 2013, when Bolivia complained that its presidential jet carrying Evo Morales from Russia to Bolivia had been rerouted and forced to land in Austria over suspicion that Snowden was on board.

Defenders of Snowden hail him as a modern-day dissident for exposing the extent of U.S. spying and alleged violation of privacy. Opponents say he is a traitor who endangered lives by exposing the secret methods that Western spies use to listen in on hostile states and militants.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; additional reporting by Steve Holland, Andrea Shalal, Sarah N. Lynch, Susan Heavey and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Nick Macfie and Sandra Maler)

Amid geopolitical instability, NNSA looks to industry for new arms control verification tech

For US nuclear stocks, Jill Hruby of the Department of Energy said, "this is the most demanding moment in the history of our nation's nuclear enterprise since the Manhattan Project."

By THERESA HITCHENS

December 02, 2022


Seemingly overnight in the spring of 2021, a network of roads and regularly-spaced buildings sprung up on an expanse of barren gravel near Yumen, China. The structures match the appearance of missile silos under construction in other locations in China, and analysts believe the complex is intended to house the DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile, according to Planet. (Photo: June 9, 2021. Planet)

WASHINGTON — The Energy Department’s semi-autonomous nuclear security organization has launched a new effort to develop technology to bolster future arms control agreements, and is seeking innovative concepts from industry, according to a senior Biden administration official.

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NSSA) “has established a new arms control advancement initiative to invest in next generation arms control capabilities. This initiative will allow new ideas for warhead monitoring and verification, including the establishment of a testbed and purposeful stewardship of expertise within the complex,” Jill Hruby, DoE undersecretary for nuclear security and NNSA administrator, said Thursday.

“We want to make sure we’re getting new ideas with new technologies. The technologies currently deployed or monitoring and verification are pretty old,” she added in an online interview with the Advanced Nuclear Weapons Alliance (ANWA).

Hruby said that NNSA is looking to industry to provide innovative solutions across a multitude of technologies. These include satellite-based monitoring capabilities, “big data,” artificial intelligence and robotics, as well as “secure communications of different types.”

She explained that the plan is to build a testbed to try out proposed solutions “so that we can compare apples-to-apples on these things,” as well as bring in a wide variety of potential vendors.

Another goal of the new initiative is developing a next-generation workforce.

“Arms control comes and goes, but we need to maintain the workforce that ‘gets it’ — meaning understanding missiles, understanding weapons, understanding how they’re stored, all kinds of things,” she said. “So, we’re taking a page, frankly, from the science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program, to say: ‘What do we need to do to maintain expertise and knowledge and the arms control program?'”

Hruby made clear, however, that the focus of the initiative is firmly on the far future, because at the moment any hopes the Biden administration had for nuclear arms control are on life support.

“We recognize that regrettably current geopolitical conditions do not lend themselves to the establishment of new arms control agreements in the near term, either bilaterally or multilaterally,” she said.

“China’s nuclear expansion and Russia’s pursuit of novel nuclear capabilities; North Korea’s ongoing missile tests and Iran’s willingness to enrich uranium far above the levels permitted by the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], all indicate that at this time these nations are not interested in new agreements, or even in productive dialogue. However, that is no reason to sit idle and wait for favorable conditions present themselves,” she said.

Further, Hruby said that the downhill slide of geopolitical stability — in particular, US relations with both Russia and China — makes any US moves toward nuclear disarmament inconceivable, and the need for modernization across the nation’s nuclear arsenal all the more important.

Overall, the Biden administration’s fiscal year 2023 budget proposal includes $50.9 billion on nuclear weapons programs, with $34.4 billion for the Pentagon, which leads in building nuclear delivery systems, and $16.5 billion for the NNSA, which builds and maintains nuclear warheads.

“In the aftermath of the Cold War our enterprise shifted from a design, test and deliver methodology to a sustainment model centered on science-based Stockpile Stewardship. It made sense to take that approach during a period of strong nuclear disarmament cooperation, relative geopolitical stability, and because we had a weapons stockpile that was within its design lifetime,” she explained.

“Unfortunately, the increasing age of our weapon systems makes this approach unsustainable, without degrading confidence in our stockpile,” she continued. “And it is not considered practical to disarm under the current world conditions, maybe ever. Our nuclear weapons and their delivery systems were designed to last for a long time, but not forever.”

Hruby stressed that the “blunt truth” is that “this is the most demanding moment in the history of our nation’s nuclear enterprise since the Manhattan Project,” noting that NNSA is “in the early stages of recapitalizing our physical infrastructure to enable the execution of five weapons modernization and life extension programs.”

Meanwhile, DoD is facing a budget bow wave as it attempts to simultaneously modernize its nuclear weapons triad of intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines and bombers. The Congressional Budget Office in May 2021 estimated the price tag for the total DoD triad modernization effort at $405 billion from 2021 through 2030, up from the $238 billion it estimated in 2019.

Twitter’s credit rating was just withdrawn by S&P because of a ‘lack of sufficient information’

BYJILL R. SHAH AND BLOOMBERG
December 2, 2022 


Twitter Inc.’s credit grade was withdrawn by S&P Global Ratings, which said it lacked sufficient information to continue covering the Elon Musk-owned social media company.

The rating firm, which is among the top in the US, said the action was “due to a lack of sufficient information to maintain the rating” in a release on Friday. At the time of the withdrawal, both Twitter and its debt were on “CreditWatch,” suggesting an imminent rating action.

Twitter’s massive about $13 billion debt load was funded directly by banks led by Morgan Stanley when Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of the social media giant closed. Since then, Musk’s takeover of Twitter has brought sweeping changes to the company’s operations and product. Those changes included mass layoffs, changes in features and a raft of companies pulling advertising dollars from the platform.

The group of banks that funded the buyout now face the challenge of syndicating the debt to investors, many of whom use rating companies to determine the risk involved in buying credit.

S&P downgraded the company five notches to B- from BB+ on Nov. 1 as a result of its high leverage post-acquisition. The rating firm expected to “obtain more information regarding the final capital structure and any potential changes to the operating strategy,” according to the November research update.

Still, the rating firm said at the time, that “may not occur until the company’s new debt is syndicated.”

PATRICK LAWRENCE: 

Zhou Enlai’s Posthumous Triumph

Nations now fashioning a post–Western world order appear to be abiding by the Five Principles espoused by China’s first and long-serving premier.

King Fahd Road, Riyadh, 2020. (Timon91, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

By Patrick Lawrence
Special to Consortium News
November 28, 2022

The big news over the Thanksgiving weekend — big such that you could hardly find it in the mainstream press — is that top officials from China will travel to Riyadh in early December to meet counterparts not only from the Saudi kingdom but also from other Arab nations. There appears a strong possibility that Xi Jinping will attend.

The Chinese president is already scheduled to summit in the kingdom next month with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and, almost certainly, MbS’ father, the aging but on-the-ball King Salman bin Abdulaziz. I do not know why Beijing and the Arabs are coy as to Xi’s presence at the larger summit, but one way or the other this will be his first visit to Saudi Arabia since 2016 and could hardly come at a more significant moment.

Making the December docket yet more interesting, TRTWorld, the Turkish broadcaster, reported the day after Thanksgiving that this is to be understood as the “inaugural Chinese–Arab summit.” This starts to sound like the start of something very big indeed.

Riyadh’s rather bitter drift away from its oil-for-security alliance with the U.S., worn thin after nine decades, is by now a matter of public record. The interesting thing here is that Xi’s talks with MbS and presumably his Pop are to focus on none other than trade, as in oil and security.

It has been hard to miss these past months the Saudi kingdom’s simultaneous new tilt toward partnerships with major non–Western nations, China and Russia chief among them. Along with Turkey, Egypt, Qatar and various other nations, it had observer status at the 22nd summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Samarkand in mid–September.

As also noted in this space, Saudi Arabia is one of numerous nations that are also interested in joining an expanded version of the BRICS, whose original members, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, give the organization its name. The non–West waxes — a key feature of our century, as I have long held — just as the West’s ties with these nations wane, gradually or otherwise.

Shanghai Cooperation Organization Secretariat in Beijing, 2022. 

(N509FZ, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)

It is best to take the long view when trying to explain this fundamental shift. It is the flower of many decades of incremental material progress in the non–Western world. As the BRICS, the SCO’s members and other non–Western nations clambered up the development ladder from the 1950s and 1960s onward, Western markets were no longer the only markets if these nations had something to sell or as they searched for investment capital.

In this way the end of the West’s 500 years of global dominance has been rolling our way like a big, black bowling ball for a long time. To extend the simile, in our time we watch as it strikes its pins. The non–West now accounts for the majority of global gross domestic product — a reality that cannot be more than a couple of decades old but is among the key determinants of our era.

Why wouldn’t the Saudis, the other Gulf states, and various other nations traditionally allied or partnered with the West begin to shift loyalties? Why wouldn’t the BRICS now be planning to develop an alternative to the dollar based on a basket of currencies that heretofore have had a very minor place in global trade — notably but not only in oil?

“The end of the West’s 500 years of global dominance has been rolling our way like a big, black bowling ball for a long time.”

It is a dollars-and-cents question, then. Markets, investment capital, high-technology and heavy-industry development, scientific, cultural and educational exchanges: Not only is the West no longer the only game in town; it is not the most dynamic game in town, either.

But when I think of these practical reasons for this shift in global vitality, I get to thinking about Zhou Enlai, China’s first and long-serving premier and vice-chairman of the Chinese Communist Party during Mao’s final years.

Zhou was, more to the immediate point, among the visionary figures of those postwar decades when scores of nations were achieving independence and working out what kind of world order they proposed to live in.

The Five Principles

Zhou Enlai, left, Mao Zedong, center-left, and and Bo Gu, first from right, in Yanan, 1935. (Public domain, Wikimedia Commons)

Readers of this column may recall the admiration I have severally expressed for Zhou’s Five Principles. All five had to do with how nations should conduct themselves in an emerging era of unprecedented multiplicity: They were mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, nonaggression, noninterference in the internal affairs of others, equality and mutual benefit in relations, and peaceful coexistence.

Zhou fashioned these principles as Beijing and New Delhi worked out the Sino–Indian Agreement of 1954. Then they assumed a life of their own. Nehru took to citing them. They were incorporated into the People’s Republic’s constitution. When Sukarno hosted the seminal meeting of the Non–Aligned Movement at Bandung in 1955, the NAM declared its Ten Principles, elaborations of Zhou’s Five.

I have always thought of Zhou’s principles as great ideals. I still consider them in this way. A scholar named Dawn Murphy compares them with the tenets of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, wherein the European powers settled on a code of conduct among themselves that amounted to an early formula for achieving peaceful coexistence and avoiding war.

But as I watch the steady, encouraging coalescence of emerging non–Western nations, it seems to me Zhou’s Five Principles have a lot to do, in an altogether practical way, with their evolving relationships. Oddly enough, this is Zhou’s posthumous moment of triumph.

China’s President Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin during welcoming reception for the Russian president in Beijing, June 2018. (Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)

Think about any set of relations among non–Western powers and consider the fundamental nature of their ties. The Russians or the Chinese or the South Africans would not dream of telling the Saudis or Egyptians or Indians how to conduct their internal affairs, or of intruding on their sovereignty. The same holds true, of course, if you reverse the exercise.

I suppose I ought to state a couple of obvious points here. One, there are some unwholesome names among the non–Western nations I have mentioned, just as there were among the NAM’s members. This must be acknowledged. Abdel Fattah al–Sisi’s Egypt? Another tragic dictatorship in Egypt’s long line of them. The Turkey of Recep Tayyip Erdogan? The man is a tinpot tyrant.

Two, despite one’s objections to such nations, and I am sure figures such as Zhou and Nehru had theirs in their day, the principle of noninterference must prevail for the sake of a working, ultimately humane world order. There are exceptions to this having to do with extreme cases, of course, but this does not mean the kind of flagrant abuse the U.S. makes with its unlawful, disorderly, typically violent “humanitarian interventions.”

Going back to the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington — and one could go back much further — do you think the non–Western world did not take note of America’s lawlessness when it invaded Afghanistan, and then Iraq, and then Libya, and then Syria? I do not even have to ask in the case of Washington’s proxy war in Ukraine. The great majority of nations objects, and no longer so silently as in the previous cases I mention.

Without saying so explicitly, and I do not know why they do not, those nations now fashioning a post–Western world order come to abide by Zhou’s principles even as they are fed up with America’s incessant violations of them. Again, we are talking about ideals and profound practicalities all at once.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan, China. 2018. (MEAphotogallery, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

On Nov. 14, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft sponsored a forum under the title, “Is America Ready for a Multipolar World?” I did not think this an interesting question because the answer is so obviously no. But the occasion elicited some worthy remarks nonetheless, notably from Gérard Araud, formerly France’s permanent representative to the United Nations and more recently its ambassador to Washington. (He is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, but nobody is perfect.)

Here are a few snippets from his comments:

“I’ve always been extremely skeptical about this idea of a ‘rules-based order.’ This order is our order…. Actually, this order is reflecting the balance of power in 1945….

When the Americans basically want to do whatever they want, including when it’s against international law, as they define it, they do it.

And that’s the vision that the rest of the world has of this order. Their vision of the world, is certainly not a ‘rules-based order.’ It’s a Western order. And they accuse us of double standards, hypocrisy, and so on and so on.”

It is noteworthy that a prominent diplomat from one of the West’s great powers is now saying such things. Araud is articulating precisely what the non–West has been saying for a very long time. His appearance at Quincy is merely evidence that the message is now crossing the great divide between the West and non–West.

This is not to say I am confident the message is heard in the Atlantic world’s capitals. I do not think it is. But they will surely start hearing it in Washington, London, Paris, Brussels and Berlin as the BRICS, the SCO and many nations not members of either make it plain by what they do and what they stand for. They will stand for a world order made of practicalities and ideals such as Zhou’s —practical ideals, if there is such a thing.

We should keep these matters in mind when Xi Jinping travels to Saudi Arabia next month. Any gathering of world leaders that puts people such as MbS in the room will challenge those who favor a world order that rests, if implicitly, on Zhou Enlai’s Five Principles.

Let us not be daunted. Let us not imagine Zhou assumed the non–West was led by a band of angels. Let us recall that in full what Zhou stood for was titled Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. They are as valid today, indeed as urgent, as they were when he drafted them not quite 70 years ago.



Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune, is a columnist, essayist, author and lecturer. His most recent book is Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century. His Twitter account, @thefloutist, has been permanently censored. His web site is Patrick Lawrence. Support his work via his Patreon site. His web site is Patrick Lawrence. Support his work via his Patreon site.

Defense & National Security — US warns Turkey against attacking Syria

BY ELLEN MITCHELL - 12/01/22 

AP/Roman Koksarov

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin talks during the press conference with Minister of Defence of Latvia Artis Pabriks during the press conference in Riga, Latvia, Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Roman Koksarov)

The Pentagon is warning NATO member Turkey against a new military operation in Syria, after strikes in the country late last month endangered U.S. troops and caused casualties for their partner forces. 

This is Defense & National Security, your nightly guide to the latest developments at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and beyond. For The Hill, I’m Ellen Mitchell.

Pentagon warns Turkey after strikes threaten troops 

The Pentagon is warning NATO member Turkey against a new military operation in Syria, after strikes in the country late last month endangered U.S. troops.  

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday spoke by phone with his Turkish counterpart, conveying his “strong opposition” to a new Turkish military operation in Syria, according to a Pentagon readout on the call. 

The Pentagon’s message: Austin “expressed concern over escalating action in northern Syria and Turkey, including recent airstrikes, some of which directly threatened the safety of U.S. personnel who are working with local partners in Syria to defeat ISIS,” the readout said.   

“Secretary Austin called for de-escalation, and shared the Department’s strong opposition to a new Turkish military operation in Syria.” 

Earlier: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan last month launched airstrikes on northern Syria and Iraq targeting Kurdish groups in the two neighboring countries. Ankara claims the strikes are in retaliation for a Nov. 13 bombing in Istanbul that killed six people and injured 80 more, though the Kurdish groups have denied any involvement. 

Erdoğan additionally suggested on Nov. 23 that he also plans to order a ground invasion into northern Syria. 

Some context: The U.S. has notably partnered with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the effort to defeat ISIS in the region and continues to work with the group to keep the terrorist group at bay.  

Since the Turkish strikes, the U.S. military is operating at a reduced number of partner patrols with the SDF, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters Thursday.   

Keeping lines open: Ryder noted that while the U.S. recognizes Turkey’s security concerns, “the focus here is on preventing a destabilizing situation, which would put ISIS in an ability to reconstitute.”  

He added that the U.S. has frequent and open lines of communication with its Turkish allies “at a variety of levels.” 

Read the full story here 

Trust in US military remains below 50 percent

Public trust in the U.S. military remains below 50 percent, according to a new survey released by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute. 

About 48 percent of Americans say they have a great deal of trust in the military, slightly up from 45 percent last year. 

A major drop: Confidence in the U.S. military has plummeted in recent years. In 2018, about 70 percent of Americans said they had a great deal of trust in the institution. 

The drop to 45 percent last year was the first time only a minority of the American public expressed confidence in the armed forces in the Reagan Foundation’s survey. 

A trend: Government institutions have seen a steep decline in public trust over the years, most notably the Supreme Court after a conservative majority overturned the constitutional right to abortion in June. 

Odd man out: But the Reagan Foundation said “no other public institution” in its surveys has “seen as sharp a decline in public trust” as the military. 

A Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote in an opinion piece last month that “many Americans think the military is no longer an institution that runs on excellence, merit and individual submission to a larger cause.” 

“The current era is marked by fading trust in U.S. institutions, but confidence in one pillar has held up: the military,” it wrote. “But now even that is eroding.” 

Read more here