Japan's nuclear crisis is likely to lead to greater scrutiny of the ambitious nuclear-energy plans in China, which is also prone to earthquakes and has had issues with safety and transparency in the past.

In the days since Friday's earthquake and tsunami initiated the crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi power complex, Chinese officials have staunchly reaffirmed their commitment to nuclear power. They've said they plan to learn from Japan's experience, but also that China's modern program doesn't face the same risks as those unfolding in Japan.

'There is a higher standard in China than the world's average' for building nuclear power plants, Xu Mi, an official at China National Nuclear Corp., said in a statement issued by the state-owned company Tuesday.

But Japan's problems have triggered new attention within China on the risks of nuclear energy. Fear of the possible spread of radiation from Japan's leaks caused anxiety in some coastal Chinese cities Tuesday despite assurances from Chinese authorities─delivered via text messages and on the evening news broadcast on state television─that the leaks in Japan are unlikely to affect China. Some residents reported keeping children indoors, traveling by bus instead of walking and in some cases even leaving the country.

Sina Weibo, the most active of China's Twitter-like microblog services, blocked searches of the Chinese characters for 'nuclear leak,' apparently to help contain the spread of concern.

China is in the midst of a nuclear-power building binge, with 25 plants under construction in addition to the 13 now in operation. The plan is to expand China's current installed production capacity by nearly seven times─to 86 gigawatts in 2020 from 10.8 gigawatts now─and increase nuclear power to 5% of China's energy output, from around 1%.

Nuclear power is a core element of Beijing's commitment to reduce emissions from burning coal and other fossil fuels, much of which China has to import. Its expansion is part of five-year plan for 2011 through 2015 formally adopted by China's legislature, the National People's Congress, on Monday.

Some governments, including those of Germany and Switzerland, have said they are reassessing nuclear programs because of Japan's crisis. On Tuesday, Hsu Ming-te , deputy director of the nuclear-regulation department at Taiwan's Atomic Energy Council, said Taiwan plans to do a 'special assessment on risks' of its three nuclear plants, although officials have said they don't plan to scale back the island's use of nuclear power. India's Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh said Tuesday that India won't alter its nuclear-power expansion plans either, but it may implement 'additional safeguards' at its plants.

China has many fault lines, and has suffered several major earthquakes in recent decades. Most of China's existing or planned nuclear plants are along its coast in the east, while most of the recent seismic activity has been in the country's western provinces.

But China National Nuclear, the country's top nuclear-power developer, said this week it plans to build a new nuclear plant in the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing, which is around 480 kilometers from the epicenter of a 7.9-magnitude earthquake in 2008 that left nearly 90,000 people dead or missing in neighboring Sichuan province. The company said it wants to build the plant in the next five years, although the plant doesn't appear to be among the more than 70 planned units that have already been approved by regulators.

And major quakes have hit the coast, too. A 7.5 magnitude earthquake in 1976, thought to have killed at least a quarter of a million people, destroyed the city of Tangshan, which sits near China's northeast coast about 300 kilometers across the Bohai Sea from the Hongyanhe nuclear power plant under construction in the city of Dalian.

Mr. Xu, the China National Nuclear official, said in his statement that China's plants are all far from geological fracture zones and are built on stable bedrock. 'The antiseismic standard and flood control standard are set up in a higher level and are strictly supervised by the state nuclear safety bureau.'

Experts say Chinese officials are correct that their plants systems are unlikely to face the same problems unfolding in northeastern Japan. For many of the 25 plants under construction now, China is expected to roll out Toshiba Corp. Westinghouse 'third-generation' AP1000 model reactors, which feature passive safety systems that flush cooling water into the system instead of the kind of pumps that failed in Japanese plants.

Still, analysts at Nomura, the Japanese financial firm, estimated in a research note Tuesday that 41% of China's nuclear plants planned or under construction uses slightly older technology. 'If safety concerns push for a quicker transition to [third-generation technology], delay in plants commission is possible in the near-term,' they said.

Installing the right equipment isn't China's only challenge. Critics allege that operators of existing Chinese nuclear-power plants have sometimes been reluctant to disclose problems. Operators at the Daya Bay nuclear plant, about 80 kilometers from Hong Kong, denied Hong Kong media reports of a radiation leak last May. Several weeks later the provincial government acknowledged an increase in radioactivity but said it wasn't up to levels deemed a 'nuclear incident.'

Aspects of the industry are also cloaked in secrecy, including the handling of uranium and radioactive waste, and links to the weapons-development side of China's nuclear equation.

Nuclear experts who deal with the industry say there are divisions in China's government about how fast the program should be rolled out, despite the plan's high-level backing. One said he expects to see more emphasis on safety and less on speed. Beijing's State Council Research Office in a January report 'cautioned concerning provincial and corporate enthusiasm' for the rapid expansion that could require $150 billion in spending before 2020, according to a summary published by the London-based World Nuclear Association.

China Daily, a state-run newspaper, recently cited figures suggesting the government was spending only about $500,000 annually on safety per existing plant, against around $7 million per plant in the U.S. 'The country needs to make improvements both in investment plans and personnel development,' the report said, quoting Yu Zusheng, a member of the expert committee for the State Nuclear Power Technology Corp.

Beijing's public resolve to continue with its nuclear-power program now is reminiscent of its position almost 25 years ago, when its first nuclear plant was scheduled to open. Less than two weeks after the April 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident, a senior State Bureau of Nuclear Safety official declared the disaster 'will not affect' plans to open the Daya Bay plant.

In fact, it was another eight years before Daya Bay began producing power.

日本核危机很可能使中国宏大的核能计划受到更严密的审视。中国同样处在地震多发区，而且曾有过安全与透明度方面的问题。

自上周五地震和海啸引发日本福岛第一核电站(Fukushima Daiichi)危机以来的这些天，中国官员坚定地重申他们发展核能的决心。他们说要吸取日本的经验教训，但也说中国的现代核项目不存在那些日本正面临的风险。

国有企业中国核工业集团公司周一发表的声明中，该公司高管徐銤说，中国国核电站“门槛”比世界平均水平要高。

但日本出现的问题在中国国内引起人们对核能风险的新一轮关注。周二，尽管中国有关部门进行了安抚，但人们对日本核泄漏辐射物质可能散播开来的担忧还是在中国一些沿海城市引起焦虑。政府通过短信和中央电视台《新闻联播》对公众说，日本的核泄漏不太可能影响到中国。据报道，部分居民将孩子留在室内，出行以公交车取代步行，有些人甚至出国。

中国最活跃的微博服务新浪微博屏蔽了汉字“核泄漏”的搜索，显然是为了帮助抑制恐慌蔓延。

中国正处于核电站建设热潮中，在建核电站25座，目前已投入运营的有13座。中国的计划是将现有装机容量增加近七倍，即从目前的108亿瓦增至2020年的860亿瓦，并将核能占中国能源产量的比重从1%左右增至5%。

核电是中国政府致力于减少煤炭和其他化石燃料燃烧排放量的核心策略。中国需要进口很多这类燃料。核发展计划是2011年至2015年间十二五规划的一部分，全国人大在周一正式通过了十二五规划。

包括德国和瑞士等国在内的政府说，由于日本发生核危机，他们正在重新评估本国的核计划。台湾原子能委员会（Atomic Energy Council）核管处副处长徐明德周二说，台湾计划对其三座核电站的风险进行特别评估，尽管官员曾说他们不打算减少台湾对核能的使用。印度环境森林部长拉梅什（Jairam Ramesh）周二说，印度也不会修改其核能发展计划，但可能会加强核电站的安全设施。

中国有许多断层线，近几十年来也发生过几次大地震。中国现有及计划建设的核电站大部分位于东部沿海地区，而最近大部分地震活动都在西部省市。

但中国最大的核电开发机构中国核工业集团公司本周说，计划在西南的重庆市新建一座核电站，重庆距2008年四川省汶川大地震的震中约480公里，那次7.9级地震导致近9万人死亡或失踪。公司说希望在未来五年内开建这座核电站，但这座核电站似乎不在监管机构已经审核通过的70多座计划建设的核电站之列。

中国沿海也曾遭到重大地震袭击。1976年唐山发生的7.5级大地震被认为至少造成25万人丧生，摧毁了位于中国东北海岸附近的整个唐山市。唐山距离大连目前正在建设的红沿河核电站约300公里，中间隔着渤海。

中国核工业集团公司高管徐銤在声明中说，中国核电站选址均远离地质断裂带，而且建在稳定的基岩上，抗震和防洪标准更高，这些标准受到国家核安全局的严格监控。

专家说，中国官员说得没错，中国核电站系统不太可能面临与日本东北部核电站同样的问题。中国目前在建的核电站有25座，预计很多将使用东芝公司(Toshiba Corp.)控股的西屋电气公司(Westinghouse)的第三代AP1000型反应堆，这种模型使用的是将冷却水冲入反应堆的被动安全系统，而不是那种在日本核电站中出现故障的水泵。

尽管如此，日本金融机构野村(Nomura)的分析师周二在研究报告中估测，中国已规划完毕或在建的核电站当中，有41%使用的技术稍显陈旧。他们说，如果对于安全的关注让核电站更快地采用第三代技术，近期核电站委托建设可能会出现延后。

安装合适的设备并不是中国面临的唯一挑战。批评人士称，中国现有核电站的运营商有时并不愿披露问题。大亚湾核电站运营商去年5月否认香港媒体有关辐射泄漏的报道。该核电站距香港约80公里。几周后，广东省政府承认辐射水平有所上升，但并没有达到核事故的水平。

此外，中国核工业的情况也不为外人所知，包括如何处理铀和放射性废物以及中国核应用与武器研发的关系等。

接触中国核工业的核专家说，中国政府内部关于核电项目的推出速度存在分歧，尽管发展核电的项目受到高层的支持。一位专家说，预计中国会更强调项目的安全性，速度次之。据英国伦敦世界核能协会(World Nuclear Association)公布的一份总结报告显示，中国国务院研究室在今年1月的一份报告中提醒那些热衷于核电站快速扩张的有关省份和企业，这种快速扩张在2020年之前可能需要花费1,500亿美元。

中国官方英文报纸《中国日报》(China Daily)前不久援引有关数据，表明中国政府每年对每个现有核电站安全方面的花费只有50万美元左右，而美国每年投入到每个核电站的安全费用大约是700万美元。这篇报道援引国家核电技术公司(State Nuclear Power Technology Corp)专家委员会成员鬱祖盛的话说，中国需要在投资计划和人力开发方面进行改进。

中国公之于众的继续推进核电站项目的决心不免让人想到近25年前中国的态度，当时中国准备启动第一座核电站。1986年4月切尔诺贝利(Chernobyl)核电站事故发生后不到两周，中国国家核安全局的一位高级官员说，那场灾难不会影响大亚湾核电站的启动计划。

而实际上，八年之后，大亚湾核电站才开始发电。