China Condemns Britain's Nationalization of Its Last Major Steelworks

China rebuked the United Kingdom on Friday after London nationalized British Steel, the country's last major producer of virgin steel, in a dispute that tests how far Western governments will go to reclaim strategic industry from foreign owners.

The British government said it acted to protect the national interest and its last working blast furnaces, amid fears the Chinese owner Jingye Group would shut the plant. Jingye had bought British Steel for 70 million pounds in 2020. China's commerce ministry, quoted by state news agency Xinhua, said Beijing firmly opposes and is strongly dissatisfied with what it called a forcible takeover that disregarded Jingye's contribution to the British economy. The ministry said the move seriously damaged the company's rights and had undermined Chinese firms' confidence in investing in Britain. Jingye has begun consultations under the two countries' bilateral investment treaty and is demanding compensation.

The two sides frame the same facts very differently. London presents the takeover as a defensive measure to preserve domestic steelmaking capacity it regards as essential. Beijing presents it as expropriation of a lawful investor and a warning sign for other Chinese companies operating in Western economies.

The episode fits a broader pattern in which governments increasingly treat steel, chips and energy infrastructure as strategic assets to be held domestically rather than left to global markets, accepting the friction with trading partners that follows.