China-owned British Steel said to have requested £600m of taxpayersupport.

Whether the owners are Chinese is a question that there is no need toask, because the state should never give money to a business "tosupport it."Instead it should offer to lend money to the company for suitablerepayment, or else buy equity at a fair price.

These two ways of supporting a company avoid giving the owners anopportunity to rip off the state -- which the company's owners are likelyto try to do, if they can, regardless of which country they are from.

With a policy like this, it wouldn't matter which country thecompany's owners are from.