UK must be more careful about risks of China investment, Labour Party

Britain needs to be more “clear-eyed” about the risks of Chinese investment in key industries like nuclear energy, the opposition Labour Party said on Monday accusing Prime Minister Boris Johnson of an inconsistent strategy toward Beijing.

In an interview with Reuters, Labour foreign policy chief Lisa Nandy said Chinese involvement in the British economy could not be stopped entirely, but that key industries needed to be better protected in the interest of national security.

“Some people have likened it to a Cold War type situation. It isn’t, it’s far more complicated than that,” Nandy said on the sidelines of Labour’s annual party conference in Brighton, southern England.

“We’ve got to be far more clear-eyed about the risks to the UK posed by Chinese investment and the Chinese government.”

Johnson’s government has itself expressed nation security concerns about Chinese investment, excluding telecoms firm Huawei from its next generation mobile network.

But China remains involved in the construction of new nuclear power plant in southern England, working with French firm EDF.

That, coming alongside government criticism of both China’s role in the former British colony of Hong Kong and its treatment of Uyghur Muslims in its western Xinjiang region, amounted to a muddled foreign policy dictated by conflicting government departments, Nandy said.

“It’s no wonder that the foreign secretary hasn’t been taken seriously in Beijing, when he - now she - can’t even be taken seriously around the cabinet table,” Nandy said, referring to foreign minister Liz Truss and her predecessor Dominic Raab.