China’s well-documented strategy of investing in British companies and infrastructure means that Beijing has a huge presence in Scotland with everything from whisky and beer to wind farms and North Sea oil and gas under Chinese control.
The Sunday Times has compiled ‘The China List’ – first published in 2021 and updated two years later – which shows the Chinese state owns UK assets worth £45billion. In total, Chinese and Hong Kong investors own a portfolio worth £152bn including huge stakes in companies such as HSBC, AstraZeneca, Shell, BP and Diageo.
Infamously, Beijing’s assets include a 33% stake in the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station and a 100% stake in UK Power Networks, which runs the power grid across London and south east England.
But one of the most lucrative investments is the 49% stake in Neptune Energy, a German firm with North Sea oil and gas assets. Over five years, it returned £294m in dividends to the China Investment Corporation.
Red Rock Renewables is based in Edinburgh, although it is a subsidiary of China’s State Development and Investment Corporation. In September, it was reported that Red Rock was looking to sell its portfolio of Scottish wind farms, which was valued at £500m to £700m.
They include the Beatrice offshore wind farm in the Moray Firth, which can power up to 450,000 homes, and the Afton and Benbrack onshore wind farms.
A new report by the China Chamber of Commerce in the UK shows that 4.1% of Chinese-owned companies in the UK are headquartered in Scotland – the highest percentage outside London and the south east of England. Also, 27.4% of Chinese firms in the UK have Scottish operations.
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I think it’s a negatively compounding quick-fix. The more money that leaves the country as profits from foreign investment, the less there is left to invest yourself, so you need to go looking for even more, on worse and worse terms as you get smaller and smaller and they get bigger and bigger.