Fingye's intent was clear - the UK should have seen it

"It is a long way from Scunthorpe to the windswept plains of northeast China.

- MICHAEL SHERIDAN

But a journey to the hometown of the Chinese firm that owns British Steel would soon reveal to a traveller how closely Jingye Steel is integrated with the politics and strategy of the People’s Republic.

The foreign ministry in Beijing warned Britain yesterday to “avoid politicising and over-stretching the concept of security in economic and trade co-operation” after the UK government took control of British Steel by an act of parliament.

That, frankly, was a bit rich.

The history of Hebei Jingye Steel, to give the owner its full title, is steeped in Communist Party lore. Its founder, Li Ganpo, served as a member of the National People’s Congress (NPC), the tame “parliament” that meets annually to endorse president Xi Jinping’s policies. And Jingye Steel is obedient to Xi’s vision of a new China that bestrides world trade like an industrial colossus.

The company’s promotional material notes with pride that its base in Pingshan County, Hebei Province, is “the revolutionary holy land” where the Party’s central committee had its headquarters in the last stages of the Chinese civil war. It lists Li as a member of the 11th NPC, which sat from 2008 to 2013, during Xi’s ascent to supreme power. An official photograph shows him shaking hands with Li Keqiang, who served as Xi’s prime minister.

Li himself is a local man, born in Pingshan in 1949 just as Mao Zedong’s armies were storming to victory and the “liberation” of China. He grew up in the socialist state, combining the roles of entrepreneur and Party cadre as the country moved from revolution to reform. He founded Jingye Steel in 1990.