The last country to carry out such a rapid nuclear expansion was the United States in the 1970s, in a binge of reactor construction that ended with the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979. And China is placing many of its nuclear plants near large cities, potentially exposing tens of millions of people to radiation in the event of an accident.

In addition, China must maintain nuclear safeguards in a national business culture where quality and safety sometimes take a back seat to cost-cutting, profits and outright corruption  as shown by scandals in the food, pharmaceutical and toy industries and by the shoddy construction of schools that collapsed in the Sichuan Province earthquake last year.

“At the current stage, if we are not fully aware of the sector’s over-rapid expansions, it will threaten construction quality and operation safety of nuclear power plants,” Li Ganjie, the director of China’s National Nuclear Safety Administration, said in a speech this year.

A top-level corruption scandal is already unfolding in the nuclear industry.

In August, the Chinese government dismissed and detained the powerful president of the China National Nuclear Corporation, Kang Rixin, in a $260 million corruption case involving allegations of bid-rigging in nuclear power plant construction, according to official media reports. No charges have been reported against Mr. Kang, who is being held incommunicado for interrogation.

While none of Mr. Kang’s decisions publicly documented would have created hazardous conditions at nuclear plants, the case is a worrisome sign that nuclear executives in China may not always put safety first in their decision-making.