The new nuclear security law will allow the public to have a say on whether a nuclear plant should be built, an official from the National Energy Administration told media on Saturday.
The draft nuclear security law will be submitted to China's top legislator for review in the middle of 2016, the China Business Journal newspaper reported Saturday.
The law stipulates that the public would participate in planning and approval of the establishment of nuclear plants, according to the report.
"If the public disagrees, a nuclear plant will definitely not be built," it cited an unnamed staff at the National Energy Administration as saying.
The law would also specify compensation for damages in nuclear accidents, said the report.
Local officials and related parties would be invited to visit the existing plants. Information about construction projects will also be posted online, the report noted.
The voices from grass-roots on environment and safety evaluation would be heard in the monitoring of nuclear and radiation safety, said Xu Jianping, the chief engineer at a regional branch of the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
The National People's Congress, China's top legislature, put the nuclear security law onto its legislative agenda in 2013 and a first version of the draft was finished for review by the NPC in 2014, the staff said.
China now has a set of regulations and guidelines in accordance with international standards on nuclear safety, but lacks a set of specified laws on nuclear development. The Nuclear Security Law might fill the gap," an unnamed source who reportedly participated in the drafting of the nuclear security law told the eeo.com.cn.
A nuclear plant generally takes 15 to 20 years to build and that provides ample time for communication between the government and local residents, the report cited a member of the China Nuclear Society.
As of June 2014, China had 19 operating nuclear power units and 29 units under construction, according to the National Nuclear Safety Administration.
The 2011 leakage of radioactive material from the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan has raised public concerns about nuclear safety in China.
A planned CGN nuclear fuel processing project in Guangdong's city of Heshan was cancelled in July due to opposition from local residents, the Xinhua News Agency reported in Aug 2013.
