UK expanding labour and tourism relations with China
Chancellor George Osborne has announced today plans to expand UK business relations with China, through trade and tourism.  Speaking at a press conference in China, Osborne announced £6m for cultural exchanges to boost tourism, including sending the British Museum's exhibition 'A History of the World in 100 Objects' to China, and the possibility of China being allowed to build a nuclear power station in Essex, as part of a wider nuclear co-operation worth tens of billions of pounds. However, the GMB Union voiced concerns﻿ for British workers, especially following a report by Chinese nuclear physicist, He Zuoxiu, stating that China's nuclear expansion was compromising safety, and its "nuclear energy costs are cheap in China because we lower our standards".﻿

China is expected to be allowed to build a nuclear power station in Essex as George Osborne embraced the world’s most populous country as an ideal partner for British business.

The chancellor, on a trade mission to the country, argued that Britain should “run towards China” to help boost the UK economy and signalled that China could build a nuclear site in Bradwell, Essex, as part of a wider nuclear co-operation worth tens of billions of pounds.

Speaking at a press conference, Osborne sidestepped concerns over Downing Street’s growing proximity to Beijing. When asked about what US officials have called Britain’s “constant accommodation” of Beijing, Osborne added: “I think it is important that, as China grows, it rightly takes its place at the top table.”



The chancellor also used his visit to announce £6m for cultural exchanges to boost tourism, including sending the British Museum’s blockbuster exhibition A History of the World in 100 Objects to China, plus tours of Mandarin versions of Shakespeare and the first world war drama War Horse.

Osborne is due to visit the Shanghai stock exchange on Tuesday to pledge that Britain will “stick together” with the east Asian power, after a period when the Chinese stock market has been hit by sharp falls.

Aiming to establish the City of London as China’s “bridge” to western financial markets, Osborne is expected to say: “Whatever the headlines, regardless of the challenges, we shouldn’t be running away from China. Through the ups and downs, let’s stick together ... to grow our economies.”

However, despite Osborne’s optimism, Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, said on Monday that China could be heading for a rough economic patch. In a speech in London, Carney described China’s economic “miracle” in the last three decades as extraordinary, but noted that performance since the recession of 2008-09 had “been bolstered by a large build-up of debt, which has more than doubled to reach almost 200% of GDP”.

Some were now questioning China’s “glide path to global economic hegemony”, the governor said.

The Bradwell site is owned by EDF, the French energy company. EDF is also the lead partner with two Chinese companies in the building of Hinkley Point C in Somerset, the first nuclear power station to be built in Britain for a generation – and on Monday Osborne unveiled a £2bn loan guarantee for the plant.



Osborne and Chinese vice-premier Ma Kai in Beijing on Monday. Photograph: Ding Haitao/Xinhua Press/Corbis

The £24.5bn Hinkley project has been much delayed and EDF has struggled to finance it. Industry observers believe that the Chinese agreement to help finance Hinkley is conditional on the UK allowing Chinese companies to construct their own nuclear plant at Bradwell.

“This civil nuclear cooperation … opens the door to majority Chinese ownership of a subsequent nuclear project in Bradwell,” said Osborne, according to Reuters.

The energy minister, Amber Rudd, accompanying Osborne, said the UK would benefit from low-carbon energy, while China wanted a first showcase in the west for its newly developed nuclear technology. “They very much want to have their design up and running in the UK,” she told the Financial Times.

“That’s because we have such tough standards of regulation everyone can have confidence they are safe and show that they have a great operation to take elsewhere.”

However, while welcoming the £2bn support for Hinkley, the GMB union, which represents nuclear workers, said linking that deal to a reactor at Bradwell would be a “betrayal” of British workers. Brian Strutton, GMB national secretary for energy, said: “Chinese nuclear technology is unproven and no UK government should even consider allowing it to be used in a new nuclear power station 60 miles from London.”

In May, a leading Chinese nuclear physicist, He Zuoxiu, told the Guardian that China’s “insane” rapid nuclear expansion was compromising safety. He said: “Nuclear energy costs are cheap [in China] because we lower our standards.”

The £2bn support for Hinkley was welcomed by Jenifer Baxter, head of energy and environment at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers: “This development is welcome news and long overdue. Nuclear is set to play a central and vital role in the UK’s energy future.

“Although the financial costs of nuclear power seem high, this power station will provide and modernise the diversification we so badly need in ensuring the UK’s lights stay on. The government now needs to push forward with the development of other nuclear power sites.”



However, experts including analysts and HSBC bank, have been lining up in recent months to condemn the deal. Lord Turnbull, former head of the civil service, told Osborne that the Hinkley deal was a “bottomless pit and a big white elephant”, while the former energy minister Lord Howell, Osborne’s father-in-law, said it was “one of the worst deals ever” for British consumers and industry.

In his press conference on Monday, Osborne made no mention of an intensifying human rights crackdown in China, which has seen more than 200 lawyers and activists “disappeared”, detained or interrogated since July. But in an emailed statement to the Guardian, he said the issues remained important: “We don’t see a choice between securing growth and investment and raising human rights issues. We do both consistently, and indeed I have done so in meetings here in China.”