Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

The Fukushima nuclear disaster hit Japan hard in 2011, and it also struck a heavy blow to the international nuclear market. However, after nearly three years, it seems that the declining market is entering a new phase.

Many developing countries have become the new force to empower the nuclear market to regain momentum. This massive market has clearly drawn the attention of the US, one of the major nuclear exporters.

In mid October, the US-Vietnam Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, also known as the 123 Agreement, was signed after years of negotiation. Under the new agreement, US companies will be allowed to export nuclear equipment, ingredients and technologies, which could potentially lead to sales of US nuclear reactors, to this Southeast Asian country.

According to US Secretary of State John Kerry, Vietnam's nuclear market - already the second largest in East Asia - is expected to soar to $50 billion by 2030.

The international community has already reached the consensus that all nations have the right to utilize nuclear power, even if only for peaceful and civilian causes, and the line of nuclear non-proliferation cannot be crossed. That is why key technologies such as uranium enrichment and reprocessing are always treated with the greatest caution in the nuclear market.

However, although the US has successfully set a bar - the "gold standard" - through its deal with the United Arab Emirates in 2009, which prohibits nuclear import countries from enriching uranium or reprocessing, the similar agreement with Vietnam is not purely "gold."

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, US officials said Hanoi has agreed to purchase nuclear ingredients from international suppliers, rather than producing it domestically, but the deal "doesn't legally bar the country from developing its own domestic capabilities, either by enriching uranium or reprocessing spent nuclear fuel."

Without detailed prohibitions and regulations on the enrichment of uranium and reprocessing, this agreement has raised the risk of nuclear proliferation substantially.

Some analysts are speculating that this double-standard approach is being used to exert pressure on China at its doorstep. But this geopolitics-oriented analysis is not very convincing.

On the one hand, the US and China have much more profound cooperation in nuclear energy than most countries. The ongoing nuclear plant in Haiyang, Shandong Province, is the latest fruit of effective bilateral cooperation.

On the other hand, geopolitically, the US helping a country which has territorial claims in the South China Sea to build nuclear reactors is not welcoming to China, especially at its doorstep. But China has been reacting calmly to the rise of a new nuclear state. It knows that the agreement between the US and Vietnam is more of a business-driven act instead of a joint effort to contain China by using nuclear power.

Thus, it is not clear why the US would like to downgrade the nuclear export standard in this specific agreement. But whether it is for the lucrative market or any geopolitical purpose, Washington might need to reconsider its decision due to the substantial risk of nuclear proliferation.

As for China, the biggest concern in terms of nuclear power should not be stubbornly fixed on how to maximize its efforts to guarantee its geopolitical security will not be jeopardized. What is more important to China is how the country, which has less than 30 years of exploring the civilian use of nuclear energy, can export its technology and compete with other major powers in the nuclear market.

As a latecomer, China has been able to do little to break the established shares of the nuclear market. But the opportunity has now arrived since many developing countries have made the market much larger than before.

China must have realized this new situation, because it is offering more support to Pakistan to jointly build a nuclear power plant. Thus, China should be more active in entering the competition, which might cause a reshuffle of the nuclear market.

The author is a nuclear non-proliferation scholar based in Beijing. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

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