London's calling. And Beijing responds. The incoming call from the United Kingdom is a request for help: the young, the Chinese, should lend a hand to the older, the British, to renew a rather delicate sector: nuclear power.
The British government will allow Chinese companies to buy shares in nuclear power plants. In reality, Downing Street could allow Easterners to become majority shareholders, at least according to what was declared by Finance Minister George Osborne, during a trip to China to attract new investors.
Osborne made the announcement while visiting a nuclear facility in the south of the People's Republic. The unprecedented London-Beijing atomic axis could bring into Great Britain, and through the front door, the Chinese nuclear industry, which is growing rapidly and which would be seen as a panacea for British nuclear expansion plans.
According to an agreement between the two countries signed this week, British companies, such as International Nuclear Services but also Rolls-Royce, could acquire a greater role in Chinese nuclear plans.
The British government has been trying for some time to bring forward plans to build a new power plant over the next twenty years, but the project has been the subject of negotiations between the executive and EDF, the French giant that should set up and manage the plant.
And while delays in London's schedule pile up, China moves nimbly with a rather ambitious plan: not one, but dozens of new plants over the next few years.
