BBC Monitoring Service: Asia-Pacific 22/4/96

Kyodo News Service, Tokyo, in English 0751 gmt 20 April 1996

Beijing, 20th April: Chinese scientists disclosed recently that they have proposed using nuclear devices to dig an underground irrigation canal for the afforestation of a desert in the country's remote Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.

The scholars are He Zuoxiu, 68, a former vice-chief of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Scienes who took part in China's nuclear weapons development project, and Gong Yuzhi, vice-president of the Central Party School.

They said they set forth the proposal at the national session held in March by the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, an advisory organ to the Chinese government.

The project calls for the use of nuclear blasts to dig an underground canal through a high mountain range linking the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet to the Taklimakan Desert, about 800 km to the east [correction: north, AHA]. He expects the project to be completed in five decades.

He quoted Russian scientists as saying no radioactive pollution was created by some 200 nuclear blasts conducted by Russia for peaceful purposes.

He said no environmentalproblems would be caused by the Chinese projects since the nuclear detonations would be isolated to barren areas.

Submitted by Anders Hojmark Andersen, anders@cybernet.dk