South Korea’s nuclear industry offers Washington a model for competing with China, even as Beijing’s backing of North Korea raises the stakes on the peninsula.

The battle for nuclear energy dominance between the United States and China has found new expression along the old fault line of the 38th parallel. The United States likely cannot compete with China in nuclear energy merely by developing advanced reactor technologies or negotiating individual projects. It should attempt to build a sustained nuclear-industrial ecosystem that converts each deployment into greater domestic capability, institutional knowledge, and strategic influence. South Korea has one of the most mature nuclear energy sectors in the world, with 26 operational reactors supplying nearly one-third of the nation’s electricity, with advanced manufacturing and industrial materials support from firms throughout the country. It is likely this maturity that has sparked talks between the United States and South Korea to build eight new reactor projects.

North Korea has no known operational commercial nuclear reactors, but the recent construction of a uranium enrichment facility at the Yongbyon nuclear complex is the latest in a series of moves to expand the secretive nation’s nuclear facilities. While no direct evidence suggests Beijing is financing or helping to build any nuclear infrastructure within North Korea, it remains North Korea’s largest strategic and economic partner. China’s continued economic and diplomatic partnership with Pyongyang makes it easier for North Korea to sustain and expand a military nuclear infrastructure that directly shapes the strategic environment in which the United States and South Korea are expanding civilian nuclear cooperation. 

How South Korea Built a World-Class Nuclear Industry

The South Korean nuclear energy industry was born out of its economic partnership with the United States. South Korea’s first commercial reactor, Kori-1, was designed by the American firm Westinghouse. The reactor began commercial operation in 1978 and was the beginning of a deliberate industrial learning process overseen by the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), the state-owned electric utility.

Kori-1 was a foreign-led turnkey project that relied on foreign designs, equipment, and project management. Subsequent reactors increasingly came to rely on domestic South Korean companies for engineering, manufacturing, construction, and installation. By treating each project as an opportunity to transfer knowledge and develop domestic capabilities, KEPCO gradually assumed greater responsibility for project management while building a domestic industrial ecosystem around nuclear energy. 

Today, South Korea’s nuclear energy sector is thriving. By investing money, time, and intelligence into its nuclear sector, South Korea has created a domestic pipeline for talent, labor, and equipment that feeds a Korean nuclear reactor design that is used in power plants across the world. This reactor, the APR-1400, is the product of KEPCO’s initial efforts to engage in deliberate knowledge transfer and now sits atop dozens of Korean companies and public authorities that give its designers the regulatory and supply-chain certainty they need to expand.

How China Shapes North Korea’s Nuclear Ambitions

The North Korean state owes its current existence in large part to China. During the Korean War, American troops penetrated North Korea up to its border with China. It was only the counteroffensive by Chinese troops pushing the United States back to the current Demilitarized Zone that saved the nation. In the wake of the war, a devastated North Korea looked to China to support its rebuilding.

Pyongyang’s relationship with Beijing provides a measure of economic and diplomatic insulation from the United States and its allies, while North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities give it an independent means of challenging the security arrangements that bind Washington and Seoul. Since Pyongyang first tested a nuclear weapon in 2006, its nuclear armament program has become a very real threat to the South Korean state. North Korea has a history of expressing displeasure with South Korean policy using its missile program. In 2015, North Korea launched a missile test the same day Washington and Seoul began joint military exercises, timing later explicitly mentioned by the People’s Republic as a response to US-South Korean military cooperation. The result is a strategic relationship in which China need not direct North Korea’s nuclear policy for North Korea’s nuclear program to affect China’s principal strategic competitor in East Asia. 

What the Korean Peninsula Means for US-China Nuclear Competition

As the United States and China race for dominance of the nuclear energy sector, the nuclear programs of North and South Korea have enormous strategic value. China can find in Pyongyang a readily available trade partner, using the militaristic ambitions of the Kim family to provide funding for its continued domestic build-out. The United States should try to recapture the information KEPCO gained through developing the South Korean nuclear energy sector and build its own robust domestic environment.

In capturing this value, the United States and China risk inflaming tensions between the North and South. During the original formation of the South Korean nuclear sector, the North did not have a nuclear program of its own. The presence of nuclear weapons in the North changes the stakes of cooperation. 

Why America Needs South Korea’s Nuclear Know-How

Despite the risks, America faces intense pressure to engage with and learn from the South Korean nuclear energy industry. China is currently constructing half of the world’s nuclear energy projects. Not only will these projects supply clean, consistent, and cheap energy to the Chinese grid, but they will also develop China’s industrial base, mature its supply chains, and deepen the experience of its workforce and regulators. These advantages compound and create a nuclear energy ecosystem that can engage to reduce project timelines and unlock innovation that would not have been possible without robust coordination.

The pace and scale of the Chinese nuclear energy build-out pushes the United States toward a more aggressive footing as it tries to build its nuclear energy sector to compete. The knowledge and skill present in South Korea thus have immense value to the United States.

The Korean Peninsula is not newly divided, but the nuclear competition is giving the old fissure a new character. The pressures of the US-China rivalry are magnifying the divisions between the two Koreas. Still, as the United States attempts to place its nuclear energy industry on an equal footing with that of China, South Korea’s example provides the clearest demonstration of the potential of a liberal democratic approach.  The recent negotiations prove America is committing itself to learning those lessons and building a world-class nuclear energy sector.     

About the Author: Randall Schmollinger 

Randall Schmollinger is the CEO of Aule Materials, a company designing software in tandem with partners at the Idaho National Lab for nuclear engineering applications. He holds a BA in computer science from the University at Albany and a master’s in international affairs from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.

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