Starmer risks resurrecting Cameron’s failed China script
The Prime Minister has been mingling with world leaders in Brazil, and while his government continues to face an array of domestic challenges (from tractor protests to debates on assisted dying) he has managed to pick up a hefty endorsement from one of the world’s most powerful people.
“The new UK government is working to fix the foundations of the economy and rebuild Britain, and has set the vision of Britain reconnected.”
Was this paraphrasing of Labour’s manifesto offered up by President Biden, or an admiring European leader? Nope. The quote comes from Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.
Starmer probably won’t put Xi Jinping’s comments on a billboard back home, but he’ll be pleased with the sentiment. The foreign secretary, David Lammy, has already put in a visit to China and Starmer said yesterday that he wants Rachel Reeves to visit and “explore more investment projects and a more level playing field to help our businesses.”
After meeting the Chinese leader (described by President Biden as a dictator) Starmer said he wants relations between the two countries to be “consistent, durable and respectful,” adding that the UK would be a “predictable” partner. While he also touched on the issue of human rights and Taiwan’s security, he did so (publicly at least) in the strongest words our permanent Foreign Office bureaucrats would sanction – which is to say he raised these issues in the way a teacher might express disappointment with a child who yet again forgot to hand in their homework.
Of course the UK should have a pragmatic relationship with China, but why promise a “predictable” one?
The truth is that between them, Starmer, Lammy and Reeves appear dangerously close to repeating a script previously delivered by David Cameron and George Osborne, whose government tried so hard to engineer a “golden age” of UK-China relations. The former Chancellor even wanted to twin the UK and Shanghai stock exchanges, but the warmth went out of the relationship as China’s assault on its Uyghur population and crackdown on Hong Kong democracy became hard to ignore.
Since then, Chinese authorities have sanctioned British MPs while the head of MI5 has warned that Chinese espionage against the UK is now on an “epic scale.”
If the government believes that their quest for growth necessitates a weaker approach to China, they are making a mistake.