The threat by the Chinese company Jingye to close down Britain’s last two blast furnaces, in spite of the offer of help from the government, is yet more reminder of the perils of doing business with a potentially hostile state. Whatever the motives for Chinese companies to get involved in the running of critical UK infrastructure, there is a threat that they will wield their power in ways that are not helpful to UK energy and industrial security – to put it mildly.
Yet none of this seems to have deterred Ed Miliband last month when he visited Beijing and – it now emerges – signed a ‘clean energy partnership’ with the Chinese government.
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