German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s plan to sell parts of a container terminal at the port of Hamburg to China has been put in limbo after the country’s security authorities declared the infrastructure “vital.”

“Berlin is revisiting its previous decision to allow Cosco to acquire a stake in one of the three container terminals of the logistics company HHLA in the port of Hamburg,” a spokesman for the German finance ministry said on Wednesday.

At the same time, he stressed that at this stage it is being determined whether and under what conditions Cosco will be allowed to acquire a stake in the terminal.

This fact threatens to revive policy against the country regarding the risks of Chinese investment in the German economy, according to Reuters. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave Cosco the green light last October to acquire a 24.9% stake in the Tollerort terminal, overcoming strong opposition from its allies in the coalition government.

The acquisition is part of Beijing’s wider strategy game to gain control of infrastructure critical to the Belt and Road global trade initiative, a network of transport links designed to link Chinese factories to rich Western markets.

Cosco already owns stakes in Europe’s two largest ports, Rotterdam and Antwerp, and also controls the port of Piraeus in Athens and is behind a plan to expand the inland rail terminal at Duisburg, where the Ruhr and Rhine rivers meet.

According to Reuters, Politico