[dirtyid]

>China isn't kind enough to share cost figures, but has reduced planned plants by a major percentage, indicating that the investment return is not very good. They do not have regulatory hurdles.

PRC is currently building indigenous nuclear relatively economically which appear to be performing around expectations. What happened / what PRC can't seem to do, like the west, is build _western_ nuclear tech economically. Nuclear ambition under 13th 5-year plan has been delayed largely due Fukushima reassessement and drama over western nuclear tech (French EPR / US AP1000 technical and political issues like US sanctions / Westinghouse bankruptcy) forcing PRC to switch to domestic tech. Current 14th 5-year plan still aiming for ~180-200 GWe by 2035 with ~150 reactors, which is in line with mid 2010s assessments. What is also happening is PRC scaling up coal and solar, due to geopolitics of rushing energy security and lower renewable costs, but not at the expense of nuclear rollout.

[dv_dt]

China has an interest in subsidizing a domestic nuclear power industry as an adjunct support for a nuclear weapons capability.

[dirtyid]

Subsidizing weapons would be incidental - no need for 150 reactors. US/USSR had <20 production reactors to make pu239 for 1000s of nuclear weapons. IIRC think current US projections of PRC nuclear proliferation is 1000-1500 weapons by 2030s, based on production from a few plants dedicated to nuclear production (404 and 821). If PRC wanted 1000s of nukes, it would be much more economical to build a few dedicated weapons-grade plutonium reactors, which won't be subject to civil regulatory concerns, i.e. multi year pause due to Fukushima. Parsimonious incentive for building 150 civilian reactors is because it's economically feasible there.