Labour can delay no longer over China firm's plan for £1.5bn turbine-manufacturing facility in Scotland
Chinese firms have lots of money to invest, but economic and security concerns remain
In July 1971, US President Richard Nixon sent an official on a secret mission that shocked the world when it was revealed. This was not the Watergate scandal, but Henry Kissinger’s covert visit to China for talks that paved the way for Nixon himself to travel to Beijing the following year for a historic meeting with China’s Communist dictator, Mao Zedong.
It is to this moment in history, this diplomatic coup, that the extraordinary growth in China’s economy, military strength and influence around the world over the past decades can be traced. A once-isolated regime – which, at the time, was not even recognised by many countries – found it was increasingly accepted as a member of the global community and a valued trading partner.
China’s economy is now the second biggest in the world and as a result, its companies have large amounts of money to invest, as MingYang Wind Power’s plans for a £1.5 billion turbine-manufacturing facility in Ardersier in the Highlands demonstrate.
READ MORE: How SNP ministers have wooed controversial Chinese firm MingYang for floating wind investment
Taiwan invasion threat
However, China has also been flexing its muscles in less savoury ways, in particular, ramping up threats to invade Taiwan. Furthermore, former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith has warned he and other politicians have been subjected to “harassment, impersonation and attempted hacking from China” after criticising the regime.
So the decision facing the UK Government about whether to approve MingYang’s plans is a complicated one. The problems faced by many European countries in disentangling themselves from Russian oil and gas following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine are an example of what can happen when you become too close to dictatorial regimes bent on conquest.
READ MORE: Fears SNP's ScotWind at risk of collapse without Chinese firm MingYang's Highlands factory approval
Industry worried about ‘uncertainty’
However, Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes is quite right to insist that Labour ministers need to hurry up and make up their minds about the MingYang project, which would create 1,500 much-needed jobs.
“These decisions have to be made and we respect the process,” she said. “But all of this industry, at the moment, is worried about the uncertainty. So the faster the UK Government can provide some certainty, the more decisions that can be made by other parts of the supply chain that might be watching or waiting.”
As the North Sea oil and gas industry declines, there is a desperate need to increase the pace of growth in the renewable sector. We do not envy Labour’s call, but it’s time to make it.
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