Risks, rewards and realpolitik: Starmer walks the line in China

Even with friendly allies, thornier topics will always bubble under.

But perhaps no country with which the UK has any diplomatic relations carries more baggage than China.

For a start, there’s the ‘daily’ security threats MI5 says Chinese state actors are posing to the UK.

Then there’s the arbitrary detention and seemingly vindictive treatment of British citizen Jimmy Lai for nakedly political reasons.

Add to that the mass detention and cultural erasure of millions of Uyghur Muslims and the potential repercussions from the somewhat temperamental occupant of the White House and it’s easy to see why many feel this visit represents an unnecessary thawing of a relationship which wasn’t icy enough to begin with.

Yet thaw the relationship most definitely has, most notably with the announcement yesterday that the 2021 sanctions on six MPs and peers had been lifted.

They were banned from entering China, Hong Kong and Macau, any property they had in China was frozen and Chinese citizens and institutions were prohibited from doing business with them – hardly the behaviour of two cordial states.

But if Donald Trump declaring the UK doing business with China as ‘dangerous’ is as far as the rebuke from Washington goes, then Sir Keir Starmer will, according to his own goals, be seeing this trip as a roaring success.

Indeed he brushed off comments by Mr Trump yesterday, saying the president was “talking more about Canada”.

Mr Trump expressed disapproval of the Prime Minister’s trip to China in remarks to reporters.

“Well, it’s very dangerous for them to do that, and it’s even more dangerous, I think, for Canada to get into business with China,” he said.

He added that Canada was doing “poorly” and said “you can’t look at China as the answer”.

But in broadcast interviews in Shanghai, Sir Keir said his visit had been “very successful”.

He told Sky News: “I’ve seen President Trump’s comments.

“I think, to be fair, he was probably talking more about Canada than the United Kingdom.”

Adding, as convention dictates he must, that the US and UK remained “very close allies”, he said his visit to China had been discussed with Mr Trump’s team beforehand and pointed to the president’s upcoming visit to the country in April.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney also visited China earlier in January as the two countries sought closer economic ties, reaching a preliminary agreement to cut tariffs on selected goods.

And Downing Street will be well aware that despite initially making positive comments about the deal, Mr Trump later threatened Canada with a 100 per cent tariff on exports if Ottawa entered into a free trade agreement with China, but Mr Carney denied any such plans.

But beyond China, Sir Keir will be hoping this trip, and his fierce (by diplomatic standards) defence of Greenland will send the message that a post-Brexit Britain with a less-than-dependable US can be more global in its outlook, and still stand on its own two feet.

That as a world leader, while privately he might not like plenty of China’s actions, he will deal the hand he is dealt.

This was addressed directly by the Prime Minister ahead of his trip, telling Bloomberg he would not choose between Washington and Beijing: “I’m often invited to simply choose between countries. I don’t do that,” he said.

A contributing factor in Sir Keir’s decision to make a trip he knew would be beyond the pale for many in Westminster and unpopular in Washington must be his position in the polls.

His focus on the cost of living is no accident. It’s because he realises his best choice of an electoral miracle at the next General Election akin to Thatcher’s comeback in 1983 after the Falklands Conflict a year earlier is to reverse the economic fortunes of the county, and start making people feel better off.

And if that is to happen, a little help from the world’s second largest economy, its manufacturing powerhouse and by far the largest green economy in the world would not go amiss.

This is why he has been so keen to stress the benefits to British businesses of visa-free travel, and is talking up the economic bonuses he believes the trip has brought about.

Tariffs on Scotch whisky, for instance, are set to be halved to 5 per cent, bringing in an extra £250 million to the UK economy over the next five years, according to Downing Street.

Elsewhere, Octopus Energy Group, the UK’s largest energy supplier, has announced it will start a new joint venture with China’s PCG Power, aimed at trading renewable energy in China. This aims to generate £500 million within five years.

And in a sign that the relationship may have further thawing to come, No 10 has also left the door open to a future visit to the UK by Mr Xi, whose last state visit to Britain was in October 2015.

Sir Keir also told GB News he hoped Mr Xi would attend next year’s G20 summit, which is being hosted by the UK.