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there would of course be equally serious implications for UK/China relations, since HMG has lobbied strongly and successfully for a large UK component in the project, and for our cooperation with the French Government over the
project.
9.
Were it
The direct implications for the UK nuclear power programme would also be serious. NED point out that any move by the British Government to identify with a Hong kong request to the Chinese to move Daya Bay or to convert it into a thermal plant
thermal plant would inevitably be seized on by the anti-nuclear movement as evidence of a more general lack of confidence in the safety of nuclear power.
possible to draw
to draw a convincing border line between Chinese and UK practice on the siting of power stations So as to enable us to argue that we would never allow a "Daya Bay/Hong Kong" situation to arise in the UK this danger might be containable. But there are obvious difficulties. A number of British nuclear power stations are roughly as close to major centres of population as Daya Bay is to Hong kong (eg Heysham to Liverpool and Bradwell to London).
And while it is true that Londoners and
Liverpudlians would have a greater choice of places to which to flee in a nuclear emergency it is far from certain that in the present not entirely rational state of public opnion on nuclear matters in the UK this argument would carry full
full conviction. The questions would
case be posed why in the circumstances the British
Government had not made representations to China at an early stage. At the very least an additional rod would be created for belabouring the Government's nuclear policy.
in any
10. At present this scenario is a hypothetical one, and I do not think that it need be addressed in detail in the Secretary of State's minute. How HMG would have to respond in such circumstances is difficult to predict. But the minimum
to demonstrate that we
needed for
HMG
were
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