German port sales to China may be stopped

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's controversial plan to sell part of the container terminal at the Port of Hamburg to China may now be blocked by German security authorities, according to the magazine Søfart. Germany's Federal Office for Information Security has now classified the port as "critical infrastructure", which means that the government in Berlin will have to reassess the entire sale and perhaps ultimately drop it, the magazine writes. The sale has been highly controversial, both in the chancellor's own party, the rest of Germany and in port circles. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned in her opening speech in the Danish Parliament last October not to naively sell vital national interests to countries that do not share security policy views. Ed.