Could China’s molten salt nuclear reactor be a clean, safe source of power?

This article largely misses the point on these reactors. Liquid fueled, low pressure fission reactors make sense, solid fuel, water cooled, high pressure reactors are stupid. This is the key factor, not Thorium.

Thorium is good to use for nations without much Uranium supply (in a reactor its turned into Uranium which is what fuels the reaction), but some of the small modular reactor designs inching towards the market today are designed for Uranium molten salts too.

Cooling isn't the point of the liquid fuels. Energy is extracted from running the fuel salt through heat exchangers, so that's cooling I guess. However the reactor and fuel are engineered to maintain optimal conditions by design not by brute force cooling. High temperature without pressurization, mixing to allow burning all the reactants, easy extraction of by-products, and simple means for walk-away safety as a backup are all more important aspects of liquid fuels.

This video is a great intro and explains most of that better than 3 paragraphs can https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7baTdyHv8g most everything on that channel is related to Thorium or next-gen reactors in general.