Reuters, London :Chinese President Xi Jinping will preside on Wednesday over the signing of a deal to help fund a new nuclear power station in Britain and discuss contracts worth $46 billion that Prime Minister David Cameron is keen to clinch.After a day of pomp, Xi will get down to business at Cameron’s Downing Street residence and attend a meeting in London with chief executives of big British companies.The highlight of that summit is expected to be an announcement that state-owned China General Nuclear Corporation (CGN) will take a $18 billion ($28-billion), one-third stake in the Hinkley Point nuclear plant owned by France’s EDF (EDF.PA).”A growing China-UK relationship benefits both countries and the world as a whole,” Xi told a state banquet at Buckingham Palace hosted by Queen Elizabeth on Tuesday night.Cameron is pitching Britain as the pre-eminent Western gateway for investment from China, though the warmth of the reception for Xi has raised some eyebrows with allies and drawn criticism that London is ignoring China’s human rights record.Protests on the street against the Communist leader have been small so far, despite activists accusing Cameron of courting Chinese money while brushing aside criticism of a crackdown in civil liberties since Xi came to power in 2012.British officials and business leaders say the rise of China is impossible to ignore: China’s economy – the second biggest in the world – is four times the size of Britain’s. “We encourage investment, and China is investing more in Britain now than other European countries,” Cameron, who wants to make London the dominant Western centre for renminbi trade, told China Central Television.China on Wednesday nearly doubled a bilateral currency swap agreement with Britain to 350 billion yuan ($55 billion), part of Beijing efforts to spur more use of the yuan abroad.In what is likely to be the biggest deal of Xi’s visit, China will take a stake in the EDF project in Somerset that is due to start operating by 2025 and is the first European nuclear plant to be built since Japan’s Fukushima disaster in 2011.The Chinese investment, agreed in principle in October 2013, breathes life into a British plan to replace around a quarter of its electricity generating capacity over the next decade and offers China a way to showcase its nuclear technology as part of its pitch as a global exporter of quality infrastructure.
