Uk Minister Met Chinese Turbine Company Amid Security Concerns

LONDON — Britain’s investment minister met with China’s biggest offshore wind company last year, amid security fears about the role of Chinese firms in U.K. and European energy projects.

Ministerial transparency documents published this week reveal that Poppy Gustafsson met with Ming Yang Smart Energy Group Limited on Dec. 4 for a dinner.

Officials confirmed to POLITICO that the minister discussed the company’s business aspirations in the U.K.

The meeting was held in China during a visit last year, the month before Chancellor Rachel Reeves visited the country to drum up investment.

Earlier this month, The Sun newspaper revealed that Ming Yang was selected by a joint Italian-Norwegian-Japanese venture to provide turbines for its Green Volt North Sea wind farm, set to be Europe’s largest floating green energy project.

Norway rejected the firm’s bid for a tender last year over national security concerns, the paper said.

Ming Yang are also in talks to open a turbine plant in Scotland if the Green Volt deal is given the go-ahead, having been given “priority status” to set up the manufacturing base, according to The Daily Mail.

A trade department spokesperson said: “The investment minister has met with a number of companies, including MingYang Smart Energy Group, as part of her role to drive forward the government’s plan for change, including making the U.K. into a clean energy superpower and delivering economic growth.”

Security concerns

Opposition MPs in the U.K. parliament raised concerns with ministers last week about the  reports Ming Yang could be handed a role in building U.K. net zero infrastructure.

Questioning Energy Minister Kerry McCarthy, Conservative Shadow Energy Secretary Andrew Bowie said: “The indication that Ming Yang will get the greenlight from the Treasury to supply wind turbine technology to the Greenvolt wind farm in the North Sea is concerning.” 

Bowie added that “alarm bells have been sounded by officials in [the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero] and indeed in the Ministry of Defence.”

DESNZ refused to tell POLITICO whether its officials had raised concerns with the Treasury. The Department for Business and Trade declined to comment on whether Gustafsson had raised any security concerns with Ming Yang during last year’s meeting.

Bowie said he, along with other MPs, had been briefed in recent weeks by the Royal Navy “on the vulnerability of our subsea communications and energy infrastructure. … If Chinese-manufactured turbines are installed, security experts have warned that sensors could spy on British seas, defense submarine programs, and indeed the layout of our energy infrastructure.”

Lib Dem MP Pippa Heylings told the Commons: “A former MI6 chief has warned of vulnerabilities, either deliberate or inadvertent, posed by foreign software embedded in our energy infrastructure.”

Britain’s intelligence services

MI5 is currently helping the government establish the extent to which Chinese technology could pose potential security threats, according to The Financial Times, as part of the new Labour government’s audit of policies towards China.

The government’s evolving position on China, which aims to balance the need for economic growth with its security concerns, will include its upcoming Foreign Influence Registration Scheme — a U.S.-style register of the work of foreign states in Britain. The scheme includes Russia, China and Iran, countries which MI5 views as the main state threats to the U.K.

The Home Office last month issued guidance to the U.K.’s private intelligence and security industry which included examples of how state threats could destabilize critical infrastructure. “Tactics can include collecting information about design, configuration and operation for technical access, or to gain control of supply chains through investment or monopolisation,” the department noted.

In 2019 GCHQ — an arm of MI6 — told parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee that Chinese cyber actors had previously targeted Britain’s energy sector, which saw one FTSE 100 energy company compromised, seeing commercially sensitive information stolen.

Ming Yang did not respond to a request for comment from POLITICO. The firm also met with Tory ministers during their time in government. Conservative ministers did not declare receiving any hospitality from the company.

Andrew Bowie on Thursday sought to lay the blame squarely on Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. 

Bowie told POLITICO: “We have been warning that Labour’s eco-zealotry will offshore this country’s energy security to China, and now the evidence is clear.

“By throwing billions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash into a breakneck rush to net zero, all to appease Ed Miliband’s ideology and vanity, Labour will hand control of our supply chains to foreign powers, leaving critical infrastructure at the mercy of China and Russia.”

A government spokesperson said: “We would never let anything get in the way of our national security, and while we would not comment on individual cases, investment in the energy sector is subject to the highest levels of national security scrutiny.

“We are undergoing rigorous processes to look at the role of China in our supply chain and investment in critical infrastructure, taking into account the national security considerations, as well as our need for investment in the supply chain.”

This article has been updated to include a response from a government spokesperson.