Ministers were on Monday seeking to attract more Chinese investment into the UK despite the Scunthorpe steelworks fiasco.
Treasury minister James Murray stressed that “one company does not speak to all companies who are based in China”.
Trade minister Douglas Alexander is currently in China trying to attract more investment to Britain, he added.
In Beijing, the Foreign Ministry urged the UK government to treat Chinese enterprises “fairly and impartially”.
Mr Murray also appeared to all but confirm that the British Steel plant would be nationalised, by saying that he did not believe a private sector company would be interested in buying it at the moment.
Jingye, British Steel’s Chinese owners, had reportedly not only stopped ordering raw materials but had begun selling off existing supplies, sparking concerns the plant could close within days.
British Steel staff and civil servants were on Monday attempting to avert the permanent shutdown of Britain’s last primary steelmaking plant.
The company, which was taken over by the Government on Saturday, faces a race against time to ensure it has enough raw materials to keep the two blast furnaces at its Scunthorpe plant burning.
Without those materials, such as coking coal and iron ore, the blast furnaces will cool, risking irreparable damage and the end of steelmaking in the Lincolnshire town.
“Jingye, the company we are talking about here in relationship to Scunthorpe, has clearly behaved irresponsibly..it became apparent in recent days that they were accelerating the closure of blast furnaces that’s why we had to act quickly,” Mr Murray told BBC radio.
“But one company does not speak to all companies who are based in China.”
He added: “We need to make clear that we are open for that investment from around the world, in fact Douglas Alexander, one of the trade ministers, is in China at the moment encouraging investment from China in the UK.
“While being open to free trade and investment around the world, we also need to be clear that when there is foreign investment or involvement in critical infrastructure we need to have a high level of scrutiny.”
Mr Murray denied China is a “hostile state” and stressed that the Government was taking a “pragmatic” approach to dealing with Beijing, with 450,000 UK jobs dependent on exports to China.
He added that “right now” another private sector partner for the Scunthorpe steel plant was unlikely to be found, stressing: “But what we need to do is find that long-term future.”
Dozens of businesses, including Tata and Rainham Steel, have rallied to help British Steel with offers of managerial support and raw materials following the Government’s takeover.
Charlotte Brumpton-Childs, GMB union national officer, said she is “wholly reassured” that coking coal bound for the furnaces at Scunthorpe will be “paid for and unloaded over the next couple of days” at Immingham Bulk Terminal as part of efforts to avert the permanent shutdown of Britain’s last primary steelmaking plant.
The offers of support from other businesses also mean that British Steel is reassessing its options.
This includes possibly reversing Jingye’s decision to take one of the blast furnaces temporarily offline as early as Monday using a “salamander tap”, a procedure said to be dangerous.
However, the Conservatives have accused the Government of acting “too late” and implementing a “botched nationalisation” after ignoring warnings about the risk to British Steel.
