October 2, 2026
Yanliang Pan, Siegfried Hecker, with William Potter
This report was made possible by the generous support of the Kathryn Wasserman Davis Collaborative in Conflict Transformation at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, Middlebury College. The authors are grateful for the comments of reviewers, many of whom offered personal recollections of previous U.S.-China cooperative activities along with expert insights. Research benefited from the work of CNS graduate research assistants, including Daihan Cheng, Ranna Jarukin, Ying Li, and Amelia Wang.
Foreword
The United States and China are engaged in heated competition across the economic, technological, and military domains. Nuclear energy, with its strategic civilian and defense applications, rests at their intersection. The first Trump administration explicitly linked the revival of the U.S. civil nuclear enterprise to national security priorities including energy dominance, defense mission assurance, influence over global nuclear norms, and the race against Russia and China to establish global civil nuclear partnerships. Recently, U.S.-China competition in artificial intelligence has placed additional emphasis on nuclear energy because it is viewed by many as a possible solution to the growing electricity demands of datacenters.
These rivalry-centered narratives have had the unfortunate effect of obscuring the long history of U.S.-China cooperation in the peaceful applications of nuclear energy and in the broader areas of nuclear safety, security, and nonproliferation. This history is worth reviewing as it sheds light on the present moment of mistrust and decoupling: prior cooperation illustrates shared interests and mutual complementarities that continue to bind while prior frictions clarify how longstanding obstacles to cooperation may be more constructively managed at present.
This report begins its historical review with the underappreciated scientific exchanges between the United States and China in high-energy physics, nuclear physics, and magnetic fusion following President Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit. Chapters 2 to 4 recount how the United States facilitated China’s adoption of more prudent nuclear safety, security, and nonproliferation practices through technical engagement – and how China evolved as a U.S. partner in global nuclear security and nonproliferation governance. Chapter 5 traces the history of negotiations leading up to the 1985 U.S.-China civil nuclear cooperation agreement and the obstacles that were subsequently overcome to enable its implementation, setting the scene for civil nuclear commerce. Chapter 6 characterizes cooperation under the flagship AP1000 reactor deal, with implications for the U.S.-China nuclear power and nuclear safety partnership. Chapter 7 expands the historical narrative to parallel joint research in advanced fission energy technologies in the 2000s and 2010s. Chapter 8 analyzes the drivers of the first Trump administration’s policy shift curtailing civil nuclear cooperation with China. Chapter 9 concludes with reflections regarding the past, present, and future of U.S.-China civil nuclear cooperation across science, technology, commerce, and governance.
The historical review presented in this report is far from comprehensive. It focuses far more on government-driven activities than on Track 1.5 and Track 2 exchanges, many of which have had to do with nuclear-weapon and strategic-stability issues. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Center for Global Security Research, Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, the Pacific Forum, the Institute for Defense Analyses, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, among others, have compiled reports on U.S.-China dialogues surrounding these strategic issues. This report fills a different gap with its focus on nuclear science, technology, commerce, and governance in terms of safety, security, and nonproliferation. Both Washington and Beijing are finding it politically inconvenient to revisit their historical cooperation in these domains due to their present rivalry. It is therefore incumbent upon nongovernmental researchers to review and reflect upon this history. That said, information that may be gleaned from web sources, print publications, and archives is limited. The authors hope that this report might invite input from those who recall the recounted events from personal participation and those who are willing to offer reflections from alternative perspectives.
