At the time of negotiation of Chinese investment in the Hinckley C nuclear power station commentators noted that it marked a new and much deeper connection with China. Some went as far as to suggest that, in reality, it marked a transfer of sovereignty far greater than anything associated with the EU, that had passed with barely a comment. Their point was that Chinese control (or near-control) of a major nuclear power station gave them significant influence over key infrastructure. At its crudest: would they shut off our power in event of a war or trade dispute?
Continue reading “5g and China: a bigger question of sovereignty than the EU”
If we lived in a world of disconnected nation states, we might not need an EU — except for the small matter of avoiding war. I could argue that this applied for much of European history in that wars were relatively limited affairs (because most of Europe was close to subsistence farming, so there were not the human or financial resources to mobilise for a large war without facing starvation at home). But increased wealth and mechanisation of production and warfare change these things profoundly in the twentieth century.