FM meets British Minister of State for Investment
15 Mar 2021 - 8:42
The Peninsula
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani met yesterday with British Minister for Investment at the Department for International Trade and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, H E Lord Gerald Grimstone, who is currently visiting the country.
During the meeting, they reviewed bilateral cooperation and relations, and opportunities for increasing investment between the two countries.
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How the UK and China’s love affair faded
British hopes for trade, which reached their peak in 2015, have been eclipsed by worries over national security and human rights abuses
By Patrick Wintour / The Guardian
In 2003, the British Cabinet Office decided to allow Chinese state-backed Huawei Technologies to start supplying British multinational telecommunications company BT Group for the first time. Nobody bothered to put a note on the security implications into the red box of the then-British secretary of state for trade and industry Patrica Hewitt. A minor discussion, solely on the competition implications, did take place.
Then-MI6 chief Richard Dearlove, used to daily cooperation with BT to secure wire taps, was shocked and concerned when he heard of the plan, but was told: “It is nothing to do with you. These are issues we can control.”