Starmer to visit China this week in bid to build bridges with Beijing
Sir Keir Starmer will travel to China on Tuesday for the first prime ministerial visit to the country in eight years, Downing Street has confirmed.
The Prime Minister will also fly to Japan this week, No 10 said.
The visit marks a significant moment in Sir Keir’s bid to build bridges with Beijing after a freeze in Sino-British relations in the final years of the Conservative government.
It comes after controversial plans to build a huge new Chinese embassy in London were approved by the Government last week.
Sir Keir is due to be accompanied by business leaders as he seeks to improve trading relations with the superpower on the trip, which is the first by a British prime minister since Baroness Theresa May’s visit in 2018.
Sir Keir faces pressure from home to raise several difficult subjects with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, including China’s espionage activity, the treatment of the Uighur minority and the imprisonment of Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigner and British national.
A No 10 source the Government was determined to pursue a “hard-headed, grown-up” approach to its relationship with Beijing that “puts British families first”.
They added: “Sticking our heads in the sand and pretending China does not matter would be reckless, making Britain poorer and less secure.”
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Build bridges? Try doing that with Burnham before waltzing off for another jolly on the other side of the world. Chinese will have a good old laff, why should they take seriously a man who can’t control his own party yet comes to Beijing playing the “big man”?
Send in the clown, cap in hand, could you spare a bowl of rice, guv…
He will be standing outside Lidl’s selling little red books when he gets back.
Seriously the new Chinese take away, packing dismembered dissidents for export…
Considering that China is a rising, affluent power in the World, l think this is a sensible considered move.We already obtain a huge amount of our daily needs from China, for example 98% of all pens are made there, Look up China and you will see it is now a very well developed and affluent Country now. Western visitors are astonished at the level of development and welcome given there. They also tell us that in China , you can leave a bag or bike or anything else alone. It will never get stolen. Can we say the same here?