Chinese company Jingye is seeking compensation after the UK\u2019s move to fully nationalise loss-making British Steel.<\/p>\n
Published On 18 Jul 202618 Jul 2026<\/p>\n
China\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs<\/a> has said it will closely monitor the United Kingdom\u2019s nationalisation of British Steel<\/a>, previously owned by a Chinese steelmaker.<\/p>\n The UK government nationalised British Steel on Thursday, fully taking over the loss-making company, then under the ownership of Jingye, on national security grounds.<\/p>\n Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n \u201cThe issue has drawn widespread attention in China,\u201d the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201cHow Britain handles the matter will directly affect Chinese investors\u2019 confidence in the UK\u2019s investment climate and shape public perceptions in China of the British government\u2019s credibility,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n The Chinese ministry also urged Britain to seek a mutually acceptable solution, including arrangements for compensation.<\/p>\n Jingye Steel said last week it wants Britain to compensate it for losses incurred through its investment in British Steel.<\/p>\n British Steel is the only source of primary steelmaking in the UK. It supports approximately 2,700 jobs across its main steelworks in Scunthorpe and thousands more across the wider supply chain.<\/p>\n Jingye \u2013 which is among the 100 biggest companies in China \u2013 bought British Steel for 70 million pounds ($94m) in 2020. By 2025, Jingye said it was losing 700,000 pounds ($942,000) every day.<\/p>\n British Steel\u2019s nationalisation has been in the works for more than a year. In March 2025, Jingye carried out a consultation that concluded that the British Steel furnaces were not financially sustainable.<\/p>\n The following month, it emerged that Jingye had cancelled orders for a key material used in the steelmaking process, stoking fears that it was planning to shut down the blast furnaces.<\/p>\n Closing the Scunthorpe plant would make Britain the only G7 country without the ability to produce virgin steel.<\/p>\n In April, the UK government took operational control of British Steel from Jingye to stop that from happening, although the Chinese company retained ownership.<\/p>\n The UK government said on Thursday that nationalising British Steel was vital to securing jobs and supply chains, safeguarding major infrastructure projects and national security.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese company Jingye is seeking compensation after the UK\u2019s move to fully nationalise loss-making British Steel. Published On…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6109,45,49,48,95,3456,44,127],"class_list":["post-812054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-asia-pacific","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-china","tag-europe","tag-news","tag-united-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}