Have you read the Australia China Agreement that you refer to?Again a case in point - China under it's nuke import agreement had to sign up to similar intrusive inspections by IAEA. And they had to sign this agreement with Australia !!
Here it is: Australia-China Agreement for Transfer of Nuclear Material
The relevant extracts are provided below:
andARTICLE VI
1. Where nuclear material subject to this Agreement is within the territory of Australia, compliance with Article V of this Agreement shall be ensured by a system of safeguards in accordance with the Safeguards Agreement concluded on 10 July 1974 between Australia and the Agency in connection with the Treaty.
2. Where nuclear material subject to this Agreement is within the territory of China, compliance with Article V of this Agreement shall be ensured by a system of safeguards in accordance with the Safeguards Agreement concluded on 20 September 1988 between China and the Agency for the application of safeguards in China.
Do you know that the 1988 China Safeguards agreement is the sham, NWS agreement which the P-5 have and which bears no resemblance to the NNWS safeguards they ask everyone else to take on?ARTICLE VII
If, notwithstanding the efforts of both Parties to support the Treaty and the Agency, the Agency, for whatever reason at any time, is not administering the safeguards referred to in Article VI of this Agreement in the territory of one or the other Party in which nuclear material subject to this Agreement is present, the Parties shall forthwith arrange for the application of safeguards satisfactory to both Parties which conform with Agency safeguards principles and procedures and which provide reassurance equivalent to that intended to be secured by the safeguards system they replace. The Parties shall consult and assist each other in the application of such a safeguards system.
Here is the China 1988 Safeguards Agreement with IAEA:
1988 China IAEA Safeguards Agreement
Relevant Extract:
Did you know that China currently has only 2 reactors under these sham IAEA safeguards. Did you know that IAEA actually seldom conducts inspections on the handful (average of 2-3 each) of reactors that have been placed under these token safeguards by the 5 NWS? Did you know that China can withdraw these 2 reactors from even these token safeguards any time it wishes?Article 1
(a) China shall accept the application of safeguards by the Agency, in accordance with the terms of this Agreement, on all source or special fissionable material in peaceful nuclear facilities to be designated by China within its territory with a view to enabling the Agency to verify that such material is not withdrawn, except as provided for in this Agreement, from those facilities while such material is subject to safeguards under this Agreement.
(b) China shall, upon entry into force of this Agreement, provide the Agency with a List of the facilities referred to in paragraph (a) of this Article and may, in accordance with the procedures set forth in Part II of this Agreement, add facilities to or remove facilities from the List as it deems appropriate.
India currently has 6 reactors supplied by US (Tarapur-2), Canada (Rawatbhata-2), and Russia (Koodankulam-2 under construction) under more stringent safeguards than these, and no one has ever complained about them. No one would complain if all of India's future reactors receiving foreign fuel were under the most stringent IAEA safeguards designed to ensure that not a gram of sensitive material was unaccounted for. The complaints you hear are about reactors going under safeguards in 'perpetuity' when there is no explicit commitment for foreign fuel supplies in perpetuity.
Let me spell out the implications of this if you have not quite grasped them. In a future hypothetical situation where a reactor remains under safeguards, but foreign fuel supply is not forthcoming, India would need to make the hard choice between shutting down such reactor and adversely affecting its economy or diverting some of its scarce domestic fuel and adversely affecting its strategic programs or its thorium cycle related facilities (which it may want to keep out of safeguards for IPR related issues). Of course, these are exactly the kind of hard choices that our 'natural allies' would like us to make. It is not unreasonable for us to expect that MMS and today's GoI not voluntarily walk into something like this with open eyes thereby placing future GoIs in a difficult position.
This canard about what Australia and China have agreed to needs to be put to rest once and for all!
India would -- any day -- be very happy to agree with Australia on the application of an IAEA safeguards agreement that is more stringent than the 1988 China IAEA safeguards agreement.