Across Southeast Asia, a quiet but transformative shift is underway: nations across the region are reembracing nuclear power as a core component of their long-term development strategies, and China has positioned itself at the center of this emerging energy landscape, turning its growing nuclear industrial capacity into a pivotal tool of geopolitical influence.
A decade ago, large-scale nuclear development across Southeast Asia was widely seen as politically unfeasible. Today, however, the urgent pressures of climate action, rapid industrial growth, expanding artificial intelligence infrastructure, and soaring domestic electricity demand have pushed governments to prioritize low-carbon baseload power, moving nuclear energy from a marginal option to a central policy priority. The regional shift is already visible in concrete planning: Vietnam signed a construction agreement with Russia for the Ninh Thuan 1 nuclear power plant in March 2026; the Philippines and Indonesia have set targets to operationalize their first commercial reactors by the early 2030s; and Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore are actively evaluating small modular reactor technologies for future energy development.
While established nuclear exporters including France, Russia, South Korea, and the United States remain active in the region, Beijing has emerged as the most consequential long-term partner for Southeast Asian nations, backed by unmatched advantages in financing, industrial scale, and state-backed delivery capacity that few competitors can replicate. Unlike traditional infrastructure projects, nuclear partnerships are not short-term commercial transactions: they are strategic commitments that span more than 50 years, shaping everything from a nation’s long-term fuel dependency and industrial regulatory standards to its broader geopolitical alignment.
China’s rise as a global nuclear export leader is the product of decades of deliberate industrial investment and technological accumulation. As of 2026, China operates 61 commercial nuclear reactors with an additional 36 under construction, giving it the world’s third-largest operating reactor fleet while leading global nuclear construction activity. Unlike many Western nuclear industries that stagnated in the post-Cold War era, China sustained consistent investment across reactor engineering, domestic manufacturing, and workforce development, allowing it to localize approximately 90% of all reactor component production within its borders.
This deep domestic localization has cut supply chain risks, reduced manufacturing costs, and enabled Chinese nuclear firms to offer fully integrated turnkey packages that cover every stage of a project: engineering, procurement, construction, financing, workforce training, and long-term fuel supply. Rather than exporting standalone reactors, China effectively exports complete, self-sustaining nuclear ecosystems. The flagship of this export strategy is the Hualong One (HPR1000), a third-generation pressurized-water reactor co-developed by China’s two top nuclear operators, China National Nuclear Corporation and China General Nuclear Power Group. With more than 40 units already operational or under construction globally, the Hualong One has become one of the world’s most widely deployed modern reactor designs, featuring advanced safety systems and a 1,100 megawatt generation capacity per unit, enough to power roughly one million households. For developing economies grappling with persistent electricity deficits and rapid industrial expansion, this combination of cost, capacity, and fully integrated service is uniquely compelling.
Beyond comprehensive offerings, China’s appeal to Southeast Asian nations stems from its ability to deliver projects quickly and affordably. Western nuclear projects are frequently plagued by costly overruns and multi-year delays, while Russia faces growing international geopolitical constraints that limit its export reach, and South Korea lacks the large-scale financing capacity China can offer through its state-led development model. Beijing has already set an ambitious target of exporting 30 reactors to Belt and Road Initiative partner countries by 2030, an initiative valued at an estimated 1 trillion yuan (US$145 billion). Chinese nuclear cooperation already spans multiple continents, with active projects and agreements in Pakistan, Argentina, Kenya, Kazakhstan, and Saudi Arabia, demonstrating the global scale of its export push. For Southeast Asian governments working against tight development timelines to meet growing energy demand, this reliable, fast-tracked model is a major advantage.
Yet the opportunities presented by Chinese nuclear technology come with unavoidable strategic risks that regional governments cannot dismiss. Nuclear infrastructure creates unusually deep, long-term dependencies for recipient nations: reactor lifespans regularly exceed 40 years, and fuel supply, technical upgrades, and spent fuel management remain tied to the original vendor for decades. This structural dependency is amplified by the limited number of countries that possess industrial-scale uranium enrichment capacity. While Russia currently dominates global low-enriched uranium supplies, China is rapidly expanding its own domestic fuel cycle infrastructure to support its growing export business, meaning future recipient nations could become dependent on Beijing not just for construction, but for long-term fuel access and consistent operational capacity.
Technology lock-in may prove even more impactful than fuel dependency over time. Unlike traditional infrastructure such as ports or industrial parks, integrated nuclear ecosystems are extremely difficult to restructure or replace once technological and institutional dependency becomes embedded over decades. Maintenance systems, engineering standards, and regulatory frameworks remain aligned with the original supplier, gradually shaping a nation’s long-term industrial priorities and geopolitical orientation. In effect, China exports far more than power generation infrastructure: it exports sustained, long-term strategic influence.
This does not inherently imply malicious intent; all major nuclear exporters create similar structural dependencies through their supply relationships. But what makes China’s position unique is its combination of reactor exports, Belt and Road infrastructure financing, cross-border industrial integration, and broader geopolitical outreach, making the long-term strategic implications far more significant for regional states. For Southeast Asian nations seeking to maintain strategic autonomy amid intensifying US-China great power competition, this dynamic creates a difficult balancing act. Washington already views competition over critical infrastructure in maritime Southeast Asia through a strategic lens, as Chinese-backed energy, port, and digital projects expand across the region. Chinese nuclear diplomacy could therefore become a new front in broader Indo-Pacific competition over influence, technological standards, and long-term regional alignment.
In response, most ASEAN governments are expected to pursue a hedging strategy rather than aligning exclusively with any single nuclear supplier. Maritime Southeast Asian nations such as Indonesia and the Philippines are likely to pursue diversified technology partnerships with multiple exporters, while mainland Southeast Asian economies may become more deeply integrated into Chinese nuclear industrial and financing ecosystems. This divergence could eventually lead to competing nuclear technological ecosystems across the region, where infrastructure standards and fuel supply arrangements reflect broader geopolitical blocs, adding a new layer of fragmentation to ongoing Indo-Pacific great power competition.
China is also investing heavily in next-generation nuclear technology, most notably thorium molten-salt reactors. In June 2024, China’s Wuwei Thorium Molten Salt Reactor reached full operational capacity, marking a key milestone in the commercial development of this advanced reactor technology. While thorium is promoted as a safer and more sustainable alternative to conventional uranium-based nuclear power, its long-term geopolitical impact may be far more significant than its technical benefits. If China becomes the first major exporter of commercially viable thorium reactors, it could secure substantial influence over global nuclear technology standards across much of the developing world.
It is important to note that framing Southeast Asian nations as passive recipients of Chinese influence oversimplifies the complex regional dynamic. Many regional governments are pursuing nuclear partnerships with China specifically to accelerate domestic technological learning and build domestic industrial capacity. Thailand offers a clear example of this approach: in 2015, Thai utility Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding acquired a 10% stake in two Hualong One reactors at China’s Fangchenggang nuclear site in Guangxi province, while Chinese institutions trained a new generation of Thai nuclear engineering professionals. This early cooperation laid the groundwork for a 2025 bilateral memorandum on peaceful nuclear energy cooperation between Beijing and Bangkok. Notably, China itself followed a similar developmental path: its modern nuclear industry was built through technological absorption from Canadian, French, Russian, and American designs before it eventually developed fully indigenous reactor technology with domestic intellectual property rights. Many Southeast Asian states now hope to replicate this model, leveraging initial foreign partnerships to gradually build their own domestic expertise, regulatory capacity, and industrial capability.
The core challenge for regional governments will be maintaining strategic diversification. If nations become overly dependent on any single supplier—whether China, Russia, or Western vendors—their long-term strategic flexibility could be significantly eroded over time. Today, Southeast Asia’s nuclear revival is no longer solely a story about decarbonization and meeting rising electricity demand. It is increasingly tied to regional industrial competitiveness, technological sovereignty, expanding AI infrastructure, and geopolitical positioning. For China, successful expansion of nuclear exports strengthens its global industrial reach, extends its geopolitical influence, and reinforces its image as a leading provider of advanced technological solutions for developing economies. For Southeast Asian governments, Chinese nuclear cooperation delivers access to financing, rapid project deployment, and industrial learning opportunities that few other exporters can currently match. Ultimately, the actors that come to dominate Southeast Asia’s future nuclear infrastructure will likely shape the balance of technological and geopolitical influence across the Indo-Pacific for the rest of the 21st century.
