Why on God’s green earth would Trump want to reverse a policy banning the financing of overseas nuclear power?
It made perfect strategic sense.
You see, according to a document released by Pompeo, China had been twisting the arm of one of our strategic allies, to get things they desperately wanted.
Simply put, China is a bully.
The United States stands with our allies and partners against the Chinese Communist Party’s coercive bullying tactics. In the latest example, Beijing has reportedly threatened to punish British bank HSBC and to break commitments to build nuclear power plants in the United Kingdom unless London allows Huawei to build its 5G network. Shenzhen-based Huawei is an extension of the Chinese Communist Party’s surveillance state.
The CCP’s browbeating of HSBC, in particular, should serve as a cautionary tale. Just last week, the bank’s Asia-Pacific CEO, Peter Wong, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, signed a petition supporting Beijing’s disastrous decision to destroy Hong Kong’s autonomy and to break commitments made in an U.N.-registered treaty. That show of fealty seems to have earned HSBC little respect in Beijing, which continues to use the bank’s business in China as political leverage against London.
Beijing’s aggressive behavior shows why countries should avoid economic overreliance on China and should guard their critical infrastructure from CCP influence. Australia, Denmark, and other free nations have recently faced pressure from CCP interests to bow to China’s political wishes. The United States stands ready to assist our friends in the U.K. with any needs they have, from building secure and reliable nuclear power plants to developing trusted 5G solutions that protect their citizens’ privacy. Free nations deal in true friendship and desire mutual prosperity, not political and corporate kowtows. — StateDept
And here is a news story that just HAPPENED to come out the same day.
The Trump administration is rescinding an Obama-era ban on the federal government providing financing for civilian nuclear energy projects abroad, the Washington Examiner has exclusively learned.
The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation is proposing this week to reverse a ban that prevents it from funding civil nuclear projects overseas. The agency will take 30 days of public comment on the proposed policy change.
“Access to affordable and reliable power is essential for developing countries to advance their economies,” Laura Allen, a spokeswoman for the DFC, told the Washington Examiner. “This change would bring advances in technology and offer a zero-emission power source to the developing world while serving as an alternative to the predatory financing of authoritarian regimes.”
The move delivers on a longtime request from Senate Energy Committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, and her colleague Joe Manchin, the panel’s top Democrat, who argued that the prohibition “sends a harmful signal that American primacy in the civil nuclear sector is waning.”
“Nuclear energy technology can help meet the world’s clean energy needs,” Murkowski told the Washington Examiner in reaction to the policy change Tuesday. “Our energy future is global, and steps like this DFC decision are crucial to meeting climate and energy leadership goals. Lifting this prohibition will simultaneously strengthen the U.S. economy while boosting international relations and global energy security.”– Examiner
Why are those two stories connected?
China would LOVE to get Chinese Telecom companies into the 5G market into any of the member countries of the Five-Eyes Intelligence Alliance (USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand). If our information is flowing across their network, it is almost guaranteed that China will be able to monitor the information flow.
We do NOT want China having unfettered access to our information flow.
Opening this up just ‘happens’ to break the leverage China can bring to bear upon the UK, twisting their arm to adopt Communist Chinese Telecom’s 5G Network.
