PARIS — China will continue to develop nuclear power and its safety can be ensured, a senior energy policymaker said on Thursday.

"No matter in what circumstances, it is inevitable to include nuclear power as a significant component of China's effort to resolve energy problems," Zhang Guobao, advisory board chairman of the National Energy Administration (NEA), said at the International Capital Conference.

Zhang's remarks came at a time when uncertainties loom over China’s nuclear future. Beijing suspended approvals for new plants and announced a sweeping review of nuclear safety and atomic energy laws and regulations less than a week after Japan’s Fukushima disaster in March.

China has 14 existing reactors while Japan has 54 and South Korea has 21.

Twenty-seven reactors are under construction in China today, more than 40 per cent of the global total, according to data from the World Nuclear Association.

By the end of 2010, China's installed nuclear power capacity had reached 10.82 million kilowatts, with another 30.97 million kilowatts under construction, according to a white paper published this week.

But China still relies heavily on coal, consuming 3.2 billion tons, or 46 percent of the world’s total, in 2010.

Zhang, a former head of the NEA, said China cannot rely on coal to further develop its economy and improve people's lives.

He added that the safety of nuclear plants could be ensured, according to existing technology, even if "the Japan earthquake and tsunami happened again".

"China needs to diversify its energy mix, increasing the amount of nuclear in the variety of options to meet future electricity demand,” said Didier Houssin, director of Energy Markets and Security at the International Energy Agency (IEA), on the sidelines of the conference.

Electricity demand will grow massively in China over the next 20 years according to the IEA’s forecast.

"Generation III nuclear reactors have a lot of advantages in terms of nuclear safety. And is certainly a big improvement in the nuclear sector," Houssin added.

"Generation III" reactors are considered to be safer than previous reactors because they employ passive cooling systems making it much less likely that a nuclear meltdown or radioactive leak will occur.

Westinghouse's AP1000 and Areva’s EPR – competing "third-generation" designs – are being built in China. The AP1000 is the foundation for an indigenous Chinese third-generation reactor, the CP1000, which is expected to be the backbone of China's new nuclear build-up in the decade to come.

Wang Binghua, chairman of China State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation, confirmed at the conference that four Generation III "nuclear units" would be built in China from 2013 to 2017.

He said the "pilot program" would "provide the human beings with safe, economical, and clean electricity".