Sir Keir Starmer is to make his first visit to Beijing just days after allowing China to build a mega-embassy in London.
The Prime Minister – dubbed ‘Kowtow Keir’ over the controversial planning decision – will hold talks with President Xi Jinping next week in an attempt to increase trade between their two countries and so boost Britain’s flagging economy.
And he will take a delegation of chief executives with him, from leading firms such as Rolls Royce, Jaguar Land Rover and Astra Zeneca, after he vowed to end the ‘ice age’ in relations with China and seize the ‘immense’ opportunity it presents for UK firms.
On the trip Sir Keir hopes to revive a business dialogue forum known as the UK-China CEO Council that was established by Theresa May in 2018, the last time a British PM visited the country. According to Reuters, China’s second-ranking official Li Qiang could be its representative in the talks.
It comes after Labour ministers controversially dismissed fears over espionage and repression to grant China planning permission to build the biggest diplomatic base in Europe on a historic site opposite the Tower of London.
On Tuesday night Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Priti Patel 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 and toast it all with Xi Jinping.
‘Meanwhile Labour are handing British sovereign territory and £35 billion of taxpayers’ money to Mauritius, an ally of China, despite the clear threat to national security. When he is in Beijing Starmer must not make any further concessions to the Chinese Communist Party.
‘Labour are desperate to kowtow to Beijing in the hope of winning some crumbs of investment into the tanking economy they are presiding over. Only the Conservatives can be trusted to put Britain first.’
Sir Keir Starmer and President Xi Jinping held a bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in 2024
Royal Mint Court opposite the Tower of London, the site of China’s new mega-embassy
Sir Keir said in a major foreign policy speech last month that the ‘scale of the opportunity in China is immense’ and that the Government’s task is to ‘help British businesses win their share of that opportunity in a way that is safe for our country‘.
He also said the Government’s approach to China cannot keep blowing ‘hot and cold’, going from the ‘golden era’ under David Cameron to the ‘ice age’ under later Tory administrations.
His Business Secretary Peter Kyle flew to China in September to restart talks known as the UK-China Joint Economic and Trade Commission while Chancellor Rachel Reeves travelled there a year ago.
Downing Street declined to comment on the expected trip.
