FOR a finance minister so keen on the defence of UK national sovereignty against democratic Europeans, George Osborne’s unbridled enthusiasm for Chinese investment in the UK’s

critical infrastructure is striking. If all these memoranda of understanding come to fruition, Chinese entities will hold important stakes in UK water, airports, IT infrastructure and now nuclear power generation, all without a serious national debate on any potential risks such involvement might bring.

Since the Chinese government does its homework, it knows that Osborne represents a country reduced to penury by the financial crisis and with some tricky, big-ticket items on its wishlist. Since the Chinese appreciate deference from their visitors, they must have been delighted by the chancellor. Britain is open for business, as he likes to say. Just make me an offer.

Neither China’s sovereign wealth fund nor its state-owned enterprises are philanthropic. All have large war chests, and their search for profitable, secure investments around the world has stimulated competition among aspirant recipients. But good bargains are not always done in haste, and a number of unanswered questions hang over China’s proposed investment, future majority stake-holding and possible future operational involvement in Britain’s nuclear power.

Some are hardy perennials: the world has 270,000 tons of high-level waste in temporary storage, an unlovely heap that grows by 10,000 tons each year. In 50 years of nuclear power, nobody has come up with a workable plan for the million years that safety regulations demand. Are the costs of that, and of decommissioning, built into the deal — and if so, who pays?

Then there is public subsidy: nobody has built a nuclear power plant without it, but the mandatory opening-up of European electricity systems to competition means consumers are no longer obliged to underwrite unlimited costs, or to pay for expensive nuclear energy.

By arrangement with the Guardian