Gates implies liquid approaches to nuclear are hard compared to TerraPower 23 mins into the TED talk. Liquid as in LFTR (Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactor)?
Yes, he's trying to wean China off molten salt reactor development, specifically reactors like the LFTR.
China is basically the only market for fission reactors left. They are the only ones purchasing new external nuclear reactor technology as well as aggressively pursuing their own.
Bill Gates realises if China produces anything successfully independent from the West, then even if TWR functioned and functioned well, it would be a dead investment from a market (and personal legacy) perspective.
Here's Bill Gates' TED talk from February 2010 in which he describes the tech http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates.html