“It might not be sabotage,” says Member of Parliament Jonathan Reynolds. “It might be neglect.”
Reynolds serves as the United Kingdom’s Business Secretary. He’s talking about the behavior of Jungye, the Chinese owner of troubled British Steel.
“The conscious decision not just to not order raw materials but to sell existing supplies of raw materials …” Reynolds fulminated, leading him to tell the BBC that “he doesn’t want any future Chinese involvement in British steel making.”
Over the weekend, the UK Government seized British Steel, with Reynolds explaining that “he was forced to seek emergency powers to prevent owners Jingye” from “shutting down its two blast furnaces, which would have ended primary steel production in the UK.”
“They wanted to close down steel production in Britain,” argues Nigel Farage, an MP and leader of Reform UK, “This is a big strategic decision by the CCP.”
Asked if he was accusing the Chinese owners of “lying about the numbers,” the fiery Farage replied, “Yes, absolutely,” adding, “Lying about everything.”
In a single day, Saturday, Parliament passed emergency legislation to facilitate the Business Secretary’s request.
One opposition MP called it a “botched nationalization,” as the company is still in Chinese hands. It seems more a rescue attempt for Chinese owners who don’t want to be rescued.
Takeaway? Maybe China isn’t such a great economic partner after all.
Free countries are reluctantly rediscovering that we still live in a dangerous world, in which we better be able to protect ourselves and not depend on the sworn enemies of freedom.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration created with Krea and Firefly
—
See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
2 replies on “Sabotage or Neglect?”
I for one would like to see clear documentation of what-if-any commitments Jungye made. If Jungye actually lied, then the firm should face civil and perhaps criminal penalties. If Jungye simply waltzed-around verbally, then perhaps some official of the British state should be hounded into exile, but a case for seizure becomes much more dubious.
So long as China is ruled by people of the sort who control the CCP, the involvement of any major Chinese enterprise in anything should be viewed with very great suspicion; but some extremely important commodities cannot reasonably be produced in some nations, which therefore ought to import those commodities. I simply do not know that Britain ought to have operating blast furnaces. Steel is indeed of great significance, military and otherwise, but the Chinese are certainly not the only exporters; Japan, South Korea, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and America are amongst the top ten exporters of high-grade steel.
Chinese people love our country. The government has markedly reduced poverty by paying their people to work. The USA has destroyed itself by blowing third world countries apart who nominally cannot resist. But Raytheon, Boeing and General Dynamics are doing quite well, thank you.