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Chinese Interest and Investments
- arrangements.[1] In June 2020, Hitachi said: "We are not aware of any plans to sell the project to China."[2]
Linked investments
- The Government announced CGN's investment in Hinkley Point C in September 2015, although that decision was reviewed in September 2016. In January 2017, we were told by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) that the 2016 review was not prompted by the Intelligence Community, although they did contribute to the review.[3]
- As part of the 2016 review, NSS co-ordinated an assessment of the potential national security risks from Chinese investment in the UK's Civil Nuclear sector and identified espionage, leverage and disruption as the potential risks.[4] However, the Cabinet Office explained that in 're-approving' the deal in 2016 "an important consideration was that China's involvement in [Hinkley Point C] consists of financial investment in the project only: the French company EDF will own the majority share and will have sole operational control of the site".[5]
- This point was reiterated by Director GCHQ in January 2017, when he told the Committee: "ownership and sovereignty are much less of an issue than operational control … in the modern world frankly ownership of companies is pretty fluid and pretty complex. Much more important to us is the hardware but also the operational control and the control of the information and that’s where we are engaged."[6] In December 2016, (then) Director General MI5 seemed similarly content with the approval, telling the Committee
One of the really well-functioning bits of structure we have in Government these days is the fact that there is an NSC [National Security Council] that takes all of these big questions and the Agencies' Heads are there as well as the key Ministers, so questions like this get dealt with collectively … We went through [the risks of espionage, leverage and disruption] as you would expect … and an informed decision was made[7]
- Nevertheless, Chinese entry into the UK Civil Nuclear sector appears to be being managed under a policy known as 'progressive entry', whereby CGN has to demonstrate it can be a trustworthy and regulation-compliant partner. The Chairman of the UK’s Nuclear Industry Association was quoted in the Financial Times, explaining:
Progressive entry can be viewed as a sort of trade; if you do X we will give you Y … CGN had to back Hinkley, which they have done, and put up some of the capital for the follow-up EDF plant at Sizewell, which they have indicated they are willing to do [in
- ↑ 'Nuclear: Hitachi "withdraws" from £20bn Wylfa project', BBC News, 15 September 2020.
- ↑ 'Wylfa nuclear project: Donald Trump plea over site sale dismissed', BBC News, 28 June 2020.
- ↑ Oral evidence—GCHQ, *** January 2017.
- ↑ ***
- ↑ Written evidence—Cabinet Office, 31 October 2016.
- ↑ Oral evidence—GCHQ, *** January 2017
- ↑ Oral evidence—MI5, *** December 2016.
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