Keir Starmer has defended his decision to shake hands with Xi Jinping, as critics warned he is ‘naïve’ to trust China‘s communist dictator.
Sir Keir is due to meet President Xi in the small hours of Thursday morning after becoming the first British PM to travel to China in eight years.
Kemi Badenoch questioned his decision to go to Beijing, saying Britain should focus instead on strengthening ties with allies ‘worried about the threat China is posing to them’.
President Xi ordered a brutal crackdown in Hong Kong in breach of a deal with the UK – and is accused of overseeing a genocide against the Uygher people in Xinxiang province. Concerns about Chinese espionage against the UK are such that the PM and his officials have been issued with disposable ‘burner’ phones and laptops for the duration of the trip.
Some critics have branded the PM ‘Kowtow Keir’ over last week’s decision to sanction a new mega embassy in the City of London.
But speaking ahead of talks with President Xi, Sir Keir said it was time to end the ‘ice age’ in relations with Beijing and pursue ‘huge’ economic opportunities with the emerging superpower.
Addressing a delegation of British business executives who travelled with him, he hailed the visit as ‘historic’, adding: ‘It is in our national interest to engage with China. It’s the second-biggest economy in the world. If you take Hong Kong alongside China, it’s our third-biggest trading partner.
‘There are huge opportunities to be had in lots of different sectors, and we see that reflected in the delegation that we’ve got.’
Keir Starmer arrived in Beijing on Wednesday for the first trip to China by a British PM for eight years
Handshake: Sir Keir first met Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro in November 2024
China flew the Union Jack at Beijing’s Tiananmen Gate to mark Sir Keir’s arrival
As a token of friendship, Arsenal fan Sir Keir is expected to present Manchester United supporter President Xi with a prized match ball from last Sunday’s tie between the two sides, which ended in a famous 3-2 win for United.
Speaking to journalists en route to Beijing, Sir Keir insisted there was ‘no evidence’ that Chinese spies had hacked his phone, following reports that state-sponsored hackers had exposed the private communications of close aides to Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak in the past.
Intelligence sources are said to fear that the operation that began in 2021, known as Salt Typhoon, remains ongoing.
Former security minister Tom Tugendhat said the PM had effectively taken a ‘burner plane’ – chartering a commercial jet because of fears that his normal government plane could be bugged while on the ground in China.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who like Mr Tugendhat has been sanctioned by Beijing for criticising China’s human rights records, claimed officials were travelling with a tent which would be put up in the PM’s room to allow him to get dressed without being spied on.
But, asked about the risk of being hacked by his Chinese hosts, Sir Keir told reporters: ‘We’ve got robust schemes, security measures in place as you’d expect.’
The PM is due to sit down with President Xi early Thursday morning, where he is expected to push for greater trade access for British firms to boost the UK’s flagging economic growth.
Sir Keir is under pressure to tackle President Xi over a string of human rights issues, including the treatment of jailed Hong Kong democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai and the sanctioning of a string of British MPs and peers.
Mr Lai’s son Sebastian warned Beijing that his father would become a ‘martyr’ if he was allowed to die in jail – and appealed to Sir Keir to help free him.
He told Times Radio: ‘The Prime Minister has said that my father’s case is a priority… This Government just gave them this huge embassy in the middle of London. The least they could do is put a 78-year-old man, who’s in terrible health conditions, who the international community has called out for his release, our country has called out for his release, on a plane and send him back to London.
‘That seems to be a very simple thing for the Hong Kong and Chinese government to do if we’re talking about normalisation of relationships.’
The PM told reporters he would raise ‘issues that need to be raised’. But he declined to describe China’s actions in Xinxiang as ‘genocide’, despite backing a Commons motion on the issue five years ago.
Sebastian Lai appealed to Sir Keir to help free his father who was jailed by China’s repressive regime for pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong
Mrs Badenoch suggested that Sir Keir should not have made the 5,000-mile trip.
Speaking at an event in London, the Conservative leader said: ‘Would I be going to China? No, not now, because I don’t think that this is the time to do that. We need to be talking to those other countries who are worried about the threat China is posing to them.
She added: ‘We should be talking more to those countries who are aligned with our interests, not the country that is doing everything it can to undermine our economy.’
Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said China was ‘not that interested’ in investing in the UK except in critical national infrastructure, where it is restricted.
‘This golden era redux that the Prime Minister seems to want to resuscitate will not work,’ he said.
‘We are in the dying gasps of that naivety in our posture towards Beijing. The country doesn’t want it, Parliament doesn’t want it, and most of the people in the Government don’t want it.’
In the Commons, Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper said it was a mistake for the PM to go ‘cap in hand’ to Beijing in search of a trade deal ‘while the Chinese regime still holds British citizen Jimmy Lai captive in prison, and while the Chinese regime continues to hunt down pro-democracy protesters on the streets of Britain with bounties on their heads‘.
But Deputy PM David Lammy said it would be a ‘dereliction of duty’ to try to ignore China given its massive influence on world events.
