Sir Keir Starmer will head to China this week on the first visit by a British leader for eight years, seeking to build ties on issues from illegal migration to financial services at a time of plummeting relations with the US.
After President Donald Trump’s diplomatic demolition act at Davos last week, the UK prime minister is aiming to repair strained relations with Beijing while also working with EU leaders to strengthen military and economic ties.
For Beijing, the Starmer meetings offer a prime opportunity to draw another critical US ally closer after the visit by Canada’s Mark Carney to the Chinese capital this month, at which the two countries cast aside their previously frosty relationship.
Trump’s moves on Greenland and disparaging remarks on Nato allies’ contribution in Afghanistan have drawn some of the strongest rebukes yet from Starmer against the UK’s transatlantic ally.
Starmer’s visit comes against a backdrop of renewed speculation about his leadership, after the prime minister and his allies blocked an attempt by Manchester mayor Andy Burnham to return to parliament.
Dubbed “never here Keir” by his critics, Starmer will be keeping one eye on potential trouble in his party at home while on his Asian tour.
The prime minister is taking a big ministerial and business delegation to China, prompting familiar Conservative claims that he is engaged in a “kowtow” to Xi Jinping, China’s president, across a range of issues.
But Starmer, who will also briefly visit Japan, has made it clear he wants to break away from what he claims was the “ice age” in UK-China relations under previous Tory governments.
In a sign of growing trust on both sides, UK officials said Starmer would work with China to tackle the gangs involved in trafficking illegal migrants to Britain and explore new areas for financial co-operation.
For its part, China wants greater access to UK markets, in spite of warnings from the Trump administration that such investments, including plans for a wind turbine plant in Scotland, pose a security risk.
Theresa May was the last British leader to visit China, in 2018, her visit coming at the end of what had been hailed by previous Tory premier Lord David Cameron as “a golden age” in relations between the two countries.
That era had seen China invited into the most sensitive parts of the British economy, including 5G networks and nuclear power stations, only for the UK to have second thoughts.
Starmer, whose government last week approved a new Chinese “mega embassy” opposite the Tower of London, is determined to improve what he has described as a “hot and cold” relationship.
“We had the golden age of relations under David Cameron and George Osborne that then flipped into an ice age, that some still advocate,” Starmer told the Lady Mayor’s banquet in the City of London last month.
“The result is that while our allies have developed a more sophisticated approach, the UK has become an outlier,” he said, noting that French and German leaders had visited Beijing on multiple occasions since 2018. Trump, he noted, was scheduled to visit in April.
“For years the narrative ran that China was the coming power, well now it has arrived,” he said. “And the UK needs a China policy that recognises that reality.”
Starmer will be accompanied by ministers including chancellor Rachel Reeves, who has overseen the revamping of a UK-China “economic and financial dialogue” to open up more co-operation between the two countries.
The last meeting of that forum took place a year ago with some unusual and highly granular deals announced. China granted new commercial licences and quota allocations to UK companies such as HSBC and Schroders, while also approving UK “porcine semen centres for export”.
The UK expects that China will soon approve the revamping of the British embassy in Beijing, now that the planning wrangle over the proposed Chinese embassy in the City of London has been resolved.
People familiar with the matter expect China to resolve the planning permissions for the UK embassy once all procedural issues associated with its proposed London embassy, such as a judicial review, have been cleared.
Starmer’s visit will follow Carney’s trip this month, when Beijing lifted tariffs on Canadian canola seed imports and Ottawa permitted Chinese electric vehicle imports, in contrast with US trade policies that in effect bar them.
China will want a successful Starmer trip to lay the groundwork for the expected visit of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in February, which it hopes will help repair strained ties with the EU and enable it to further exploit growing divisions between the US and its western allies.
“European powers face mounting external and internal pressures and are seeking to recalibrate and restore ties with China,” the Chinese Communist Party tabloid Global Times wrote at the weekend.
But China will also want to see evidence that Starmer will stand up to his Conservative critics over supposed security concerns.
A taste of that came ahead of the visit when Dame Priti Patel, Tory foreign affairs spokesperson, said: “Having surrendered to China over their plan for a spy hub super embassy in the heart of our capital, Keir Starmer is now getting ready to jet off to Beijing to toast it all with Xi Jinping.
“Labour are desperate to kowtow to Beijing in the hope of winning some crumbs of investment in the tanking economy they are presiding over.”
The British public is also sceptical about the balance of the bilateral relationship, with 40 per cent thinking it benefits Beijing more than the UK, while just 6 per cent told pollster YouGov that Britain got more out of the relationship. However, the survey suggested that on balance Britons thought the tone of the relationship was “about right”.
Deeper co-operation on issues such as illegal immigration is expected to form a key pillar of this week’s trip, according to officials briefed on the visit, although Number 10 officials said the final shape of the discussions had not yet been nailed down.
The UK and China are expected to unveil a fresh bilateral partnership to tackle illegal migration, centred on moves to curb Chinese-made engines for small boats being used in the human-trafficking trade in Europe.
Agreeing new “security co-operation” against serious organised crime, including financial crime and gangs, is also on the agenda and could involve co-operation in the cyber sphere.
British sectors joining the business delegation include life sciences, aerospace, financial services, the Big Four in accounting and law firms.
A recent British Chamber of Commerce in China survey showed professional services, particularly law firms, were more optimistic than other sectors on the Chinese economy as more Chinese companies invested abroad in search of growth.
New Chinese regulations allow UK companies to form local joint ventures and are helping British businesses to better tap this market. The renewed optimism was “almost completely on this JV model . . . but then also their ability to help and support Chinese companies going global,” said Harry Bell of the British Chamber of Commerce in China.
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