[SuziQ]

If successfully commercialised, the pebble bed reactor would be the first radically new reactor design for several decades. It would push China to the forefront of development of a technology that researchers claim offers a new “meltdown-proof” alternative to standard water-cooled nuclear power stations.

I thought this design was created by an American firm, and had been built in South Africa already.

[rayvoneast]

the first reactor, gas-cooled as well, is in USA. 1943 when a graphite-moderated, air–cooled, 3.5 MW reactor in Oak Ridge.
The major concepts for high-temperature gas-cooled reactor(HTGR) use prismatic and spherical fuel, repectively. The latter is know as the “pebble-bed “.
Initial HTGR were the Dragon reactor in the U.K., developed in 1959.at the same time,
A german scientist, Dr Rudolf Schulten decided to do something different for the HTGR,this is how "pebble bed " came from, he is considered "father of pebble bed" .