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Japan may open a plant that can produce eight tons of plutonium a year — enough to make 1,000 to 2,000 nuclear weapons annually. That's at least as many weapons as are in the entire U.S. operationally deployed nuclear force.
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South Korea also wants to make plutonium-based nuclear fuels from imported U.S. power-reactor assemblies. In a Foggy Bottom press conference with secretary of state John Kerry on April 2, South Korean foreign minister Yun Byung-se made it clear that he wants to revise South Korea's current nuclear cooperative agreement with the U.S. in order to allow Seoul to make such fuel. Kerry said he hoped to resolve the matter soon. He will visit South Korean president Park Geun-hye in Seoul later this month.
What the secretary will offer President Park, though, is still unclear. If he says yes to Seoul, Japan will be dead set on opening its plant at Rokkasho. This, in turn, is likely to prompt China to up its atomic ante. Beijing has been coy about what its true nuclear capabilities are, but it has been toying with the idea of having the French build it a plutonium-extraction plant nearly identical to the one in Japan. China wants to build the plant adjacent to one of its major military nuclear-production sites in Jiayuguan.