Labour says that the government should carry out an audit of its relationship with Beijing after a series of controversies over Chinese investment.
Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary, called for “a complete audit” of the UK-China relationship to “call time” on friendly relations developed under David Cameron.
Boris Johnson was warned last week that Britain’s first new nuclear power station in a generation could be at risk after it emerged that the government was trying to prevent China’s state-owned energy company building it.
Ministers are considering alternatives to the involvement of China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) in the £20 billion Sizewell C nuclear power plant in Suffolk, including the government taking a stake.
The government could also block the involvement of CGN in other projects, such as plans for a new nuclear power plant at Bradwell-on-Sea in Essex.
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Nandy said: “Once again the Tories are facing the consequences of their own naive and complacent approach to relations with China. The Conservative government should never have signed the 2015 nuclear agreement and it is now having to reckon with the results.
“We need much more strategic independence in our critical infrastructure. The government should now commit to a complete audit of the UK-China relationship so that we can finally call time on the Conservatives’ failed ‘golden era’ strategy and replace weakness, division and incoherence with an approach that is instead based on strength, unity and consistency and rooted in our values.”
Ministers have also intervened in the planned purchase of Newport Wafer Fab, a Welsh microchip firm, by a Dutch company in which a Chinese firm has a controlling stake. Sir Stephen Lovegrove, the government’s national security adviser, has been asked to review the deal.
Johnson has insisted on the importance of continuing trade with China.
Under Cameron the government sought to drum up investment and trade with Beijing in what was called the “golden era” of relations.
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Labour said that ministers should now conduct a full government audit to reassess relations across security, defence, trade and technology and develop a coherent approach.
