Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was to preside over the signing of a deal to build a nuclear power station in the UK, as British Prime Minister David Cameron seeks to clinch US$46 billion in contracts with the world’s second-largest economy.
After a day of pomp on the first full day of Xi’s state visit to Britain, the Chinese leader was to focus on politics and business at talks with Cameron in his Downing Street residence and a London business summit.
The jewel in the crown of the business summit is expected to be an announcement that state-owned utilities China’s General Nuclear Corp and National Nuclear Corp will take a multibillion-dollar minority stake in the Hinkley Point nuclear plant in Somerset owned by France’s EDF.
Photo: AFP
On Tuesday, Xi was greeted with a 41-gun artillery salute before being driven to Buckingham Palace, where he and his wife, Peng Liyuan (彭麗媛), stayed, in a gilded carriage drawn by white horses. Thousands lined the route to see Xi go by.
Demonstrators from human rights and pro-Tibet groups jostled with a much larger group of Xi well-wishers whose chants of “China, China,” drowned out their rivals’ shouts of “Shame” and “Free Tibet.”
Among the protesters was dissident Chinese lawyer and activist Chen Guangcheng (陳光誠), who urged British leaders not to ignore human rights in favor of trade.
He told the BBC that while trade is important, human rights are “like air and water, and no one can live without it.”
The small protests and larger crowds of supporters followed Xi to Parliament and back to Buckingham Palace, where he later dined with Queen Elizabeth II, senior royals and dignitaries in a lavish state banquet.
“A growing China-UK relationship benefits both countries and the world as a whole,” Xi said at the state banquet.
Cameron is pitching Britain as the pre-eminent Western gateway for investment from China, though the warmth of the reception for Xi has raised some eyebrows with allies and drawn criticism that London is ignoring human rights.
British officials and business leaders say the rise of China is impossible to ignore: China’s economy is four times the size of Britain’s.
Some British lawmakers have pressed Cameron to raise the issue of cheap Chinese steel imports after more than 4,000 jobs were thrown into jeopardy at steel plants across Britain.
In an attempt to cash in on big-spending Chinese middle classes, Britain said it would introduce a cheaper two-year multiple-entry visa that will require fewer supporting documents.
In what is likely to be the biggest deal of Xi’s visit, Chinese utilities will take a stake in a ￡16 billion (US$24.7 billion) EDF power station project in Somerset. The Chinese investment was agreed in principle in October 2010,3 but has taken until now to be finally agreed.
The deal brings Britain’s first new nuclear plant since 1995 a step closer and is also a boost for EDF, which has been hit by billions of euros of cost overruns and years of delays with two of its other European nuclear projects in Finland and France.
As part of the deal, EDF may agree to cede leadership on a subsequent new nuclear project at Bradwell, east of London, to the Chinese partners who want to bring their own nuclear reactor technology to Britain.
The prospect of China, which Western spymasters say sponsors hacking of global companies, helping to build a nuclear plant in Britain and being involved in running others has stoked security concerns in Britain.
Steve Hilton, a former policy adviser to Cameron, told the BBC that Britain should impose sanctions on China for political oppression and cyberattacks instead of rolling out the red carpet.
“This is one of the worst national humiliations we’ve seen since we went cap in hand to the IMF in the 1970s,” said Hilton, who left Downing Street in 2012, referring to the 1976 crisis during which Britain was forced to ask for a loan from the IMF.
“The truth is that China is a rogue state just as bad as Russia or Iran, and I just don’t understand why we’re sucking up to them rather than standing up to them as we should be,” he said.
Additional reporting by AP
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