Your editorial, “Xi and Obama find common ground” (April 5) pointed out that in Paris last December, both Beijing and Washington showed the world they shared common ground on climate change.
At the recent nuclear security summit in Washington, President Xi Jinping (習近平) and President Barack Obama identified another area to work together through cooperation on global nuclear security.
Hong Kong people, a quarter of a century ago, were more concerned about nuclear power contamination.
A local Christian pastor reportedly galvanised one million people to take to the streets voicing their fears over nuclear power contamination from the nearby Daya Bay nuclear power plant.
As a member of an Exco-Legco group at the time, I visited France’s newest nuclear plant. Outside the 20km restricted perimeter around the plant, there were many villages that were invited to send groups to the plant to learn about operations and the safety measures in place to protect people from nuclear contamination.
The Daya Bay plant was built as a joint China-French venture, with Hong Kong financial participation and top French technical cooperation. Today it continues to supply Hong Kong with part of our electricity power needs.
Currently, China has 30 nuclear power plants in operation with at least 22 more plants under construction.