Chris Mason: The foreign policy implications of Starmer's China reset

 

What some refer to as China's "looking up economy" is at the core of the prime minister's visit to China this week.

By this, they mean that the Chinese Communist Party is always present in this strictly regulated state. Therefore, a clear message from the top is necessary to bring about meaningful change, and when it is, major changes in perspective may ensue.

Downing Street hopes people will take notice of Sir Keir Starmer's three-day tour, which includes meetings with Premier Li and President Xi in Beijing and a following travel to Shanghai.

Corporate and political goodwill has been abundant.

According to Sir Keir, the early signs seem promising.

The Communist party's mouthpiece, Chinese state media, discussed the prime minister's visit on the day he visited the president for eighteen minutes of its main thirty-minute evening bulletin, as our China reporter Laura Bicker has reported.

Additionally, there is anticipation that this might be a significant moment that opens up new chances for the businesses and sporting and cultural organizations that have joined the prime minister on this journey.

"As long as this isn't a one-off," someone told me. According to the prime minister's official spokesperson, this was not a "one and done" visit.

  

As a parade of Western leaders passes through, China may celebrate the fact that it matters.

Recent visits were made by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Soon after, Carney would learn how such a visit might proceed in the White House if President Donald Trump believes a nation is thinking about becoming too close to Beijing. In a nutshell, not very well.

When President Trump declared that it was "very dangerous" for the UK to do business with China, Sir Keir experienced a small taste of that.

The prime minister's office considered this to be rather small on the metaphorical Richter scale of presidential reprimands, in part because Trump referred to Xi as a "friend" later in the same talks.

In an interview with me, Sir Keir further stated that "it would be foolhardy to simply say we would ignore" China.

I have witnessed a conviction in the prime minister's case on China during the past few days of hard flights and long days. He obviously considers it ridiculous that this visit was made eight years after Theresa May, one of his predecessors, last visited in 2018.

He wants to make up for lost time because he believes that these years were wasted. Additionally, he seems pleased to draw attention to a source of contention with the Conservatives. Kemi Badenoch, a Tory leader, recently told the BBC that she would not have traveled if she were prime minister today.

 

What, then, can we learn from Sir Keir's accomplishments?

Warm words and schmoozing have been abundant. This is due to the fact that both serve as fuel in the "looking up economy" that I described.

Then there are the tangible accords, such as the removal of penalties placed on some lawmakers in 2021 and the lowering of tariffs, or import levies, on whisky exported by the UK to China.

After then, a concept was proposed but not yet implemented. The prime minister said that British tourists will no longer require a visa in order to enter China for less than 30 days. However, the Chinese authorities stated that they were only "actively considering."

Although he conceded that no start date had been decided upon, Sir Keir believed that it would happen. "We are making progress," he declared.

Ministers and officials involved in the specifics of the negotiations are optimistic that the benefits of a closer, more cordial relationship will gradually increase.

However, it's understandable why some people find this warmth unsettling. China, according to critics, is just an unreliable state.

They draw attention to violations of human rights, including the predicament of the Uyghurs and the imprisonment of media magnate Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong.

Others discuss Chinese cyberattacks or how MI5 warned parliament about Chinese espionage in Westminster prior to Christmas.

Dan Jarvis, the minister of security, called that a "covert and calculated attempt by China to interfere with our sovereign affairs."

Everyone I have met on this trip—from government representatives to the corporate and cultural delegation to journalists—has taken more electronic security precautions than on any previous trip I have taken, which serves as an example of that lack of trust. Many have left their typical digital equipment at home, and the majority have temporary phone numbers.

 

 

That's quite the setting for warming up a romance, then.

However, after following the prime minister both domestically and internationally during his nearly 19 months in office, he has now outlined his foreign policy vision and started to match it with actions and visits. When I spoke with him, he summed up his strategy as "We have to engage with this volatile world." "I don't think I have known a time when what is happening internationally is impacting what is going on back home so directly."

The moniker "never here Keir" that critics have thrown at him due to his many international travels stings and irritates him.

He has made a noticeable effort to resist this trip by frequently discussing how domestic living expenses are impacted by happenings abroad. In the Great Hall of the People, he even mentioned store prices to President Xi.

Sir Keir has successfully pursued and established a close friendship with President Trump. At least for the time being. This is based on exercising caution when making public statements and only criticizing the president when he believes it is absolutely necessary, as was the case lately with Greenland and the British soldiers who were killed and maimed in Afghanistan.

He says the UK has reached a trade agreement with India and has "reset" its relationship with the EU after Brexit. And now he's in China.

He will inevitably have fewer options in one direction if he leans too far in another. He tells his Labour colleagues that if they were to rejoin the EU's customs union, those trade agreements with other countries would cease.

Be perceived as approaching China too closely, and get ready for the White House's verbal abuse.

There are numerous trade-offs.

The prime minister told us on the plane, "I'm a pragmatist, a British pragmatist, applying common sense," adding that he wanted to "make Britain face outwards again."

His technique is gradual, expanding outward and in numerous directions.