China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Co., Ltd. was established in September 1994 with a registered capital of RMB 10.2 billion with nuclear power as its core business. With CGNPC as its core enterprise, China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group comprises more than twenty wholly owned or controlling subsidiaries. In April 2009, a fund run by China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group signed a deal raising US$1.03 billion for nuclear and related energy projects. Guangdong Nuclear's fund, the first industrial fund set up by a state-owned enterprise with approval from the State Council signed the fund-raising agreement with Bank of China, China Development Bank and other institutions, which will become shareholders in the fund. The financing is the first of two phases for the fund, which plans to raise a total of 10 billion yuan. In May 2013, the organization changed its name to China General Nuclear Power Group to signify that its operations extend beyond Guangdong province. In December 2014, CGN raised $3 billion by an initial public offering in Hong Kong. In December 2014, the firm announced it was acquiring three wind farms in the UK with a combined capacity of 73 megawatts from British energy company EDF Energy for a fee estimated to be in the region of £100 million. In November 2015, the company and its subsidiaries agreed to acquire 1Malaysia Development Berhad's energy assets, worth around $2.3 billion. The transaction was part of the wider 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal which resulted in billions of dollars being stolen from the Government of Malaysia and the arrest of Malaysian Prime MinisterNajib Razak for corruption and fraud
Nuclear espionage
In 2016, the US Justice Department charged CGN with stealing nuclear secrets from the United States. The Guardian reported: "According to the US Department of Justice, the FBI has discovered evidence that China General Nuclear Power has been engaged in a conspiracy to steal US nuclear secrets stretching back almost two decades. Both CGN and one of the corporation’s senior advisers, Szuhsiung Ho, have been charged with conspiring to help the Chinese government develop nuclear material in a manner that is in clear breach of US law." In August 2019, the U.S. Department of Commerce added CGN to its "entity list", barring U.S. companies from selling products to CGN. In its reasoning, the United States Department of Commerce explained that CGN attempted to acquire advanced U.S. nuclear technology to divert to military uses in China". Under China's 2017 National Intelligence Law, Chinese citizens and organisations are require to cooperate with Chinese state intelligence organisations. The Chinese state-owned China Daily claimed, without evidence, that "The real aim is to try to thwart the country’s 'Made in China 2025' and was part of the US-China trade war".
Technology import and development
CGN's first nuclear station uses reactors designed and built by the French National Company, Framatome. Then it developed an improved PWR called CPR-1000 based on the French type. CPR-1000 is a fully Chinese designed and constructed reactor type which takes a large proportion in all the reactors being built in China. This has been developed into the Generation IIIHualong One design. In February 2007, CGN signed a contract with Areva to build Taishan nuclear station with Areva's EPR, and the Xianning nuclear station will use Westinghouse Electric Company's AP1000. These two events makes this company among the first to build a nuclear station with generation III+ reactors.
