The Chinese president has heaped praise on Keir Starmer’s economic policy as the prime minister used their first meeting to raise concerns about sanctions on MPs and the treatment of the pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai.
In conversation at the G20 summit in Rio, the first between the UK and China’s leaders in six years, Starmer said he would be keen to host a full bilateral meeting with Xi Jinping and his counterpart Li Qiang in Beijing or London as soon as possible, in a meeting aimed at turning the page on frosty UK-China relations.
But the prime minister also raised human rights concern with the Chinese president about sanctions on British Conservative MPs and the deterioration of Lai, a British citizen and Hong Kong democracy activist.
The UK prime minister promised a “strong UK-China relationship” and said the pair had agreed there should be no more “surprises” between the two countries. Chinese officials bundled British journalists out of the meeting when Starmer raised the plight of Lai, who is being held in Hong Kong.
In a marked change of tone from previous years, Xi said Starmer was “fixing the foundations” of the UK economy, echoing the prime minister’s own slogan. He said the pair would “break new ground” in the relationship.
“The world has entered a new period marked by turbulence and transformation,” Xi said in the meeting. “The new UK government is working to fix the foundations of the economy and rebuild Britain and has set the vision of Britain reconnected. And China is further deepening reform across the board to advance Chinese modernisation.”
Starmer said the pair had acknowledged they wanted “relations to be consistent, durable, respectful and, as we have agreed, avoid surprises where possible”.
“A strong UK-China relationship is important for both of our countries and for the broader international community,” he said at the top of the meeting. “The UK will be a predictable, consistent, sovereign actor committed to the rule of law.”
He proposed a full bilateral meeting with Li in Beijing or London, and for the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to meet her counterpart, He Lifeng, which is expected to take place in Beijing in January.
“I’m keen that my chancellor should meet with Vice-Premier He for the upcoming economic financial dialogue early next year to explore more investment projects and a more level playing field to help our businesses,” Starmer said.
“I’m very pleased that my foreign secretary and foreign minister Wang met recently to discuss respective concerns including on human rights and parliamentary sanctions, Taiwan, the South China Sea and our shared interest in Hong Kong. We are concerned by reports of Jimmy Lai’s deterioration.”
The former security minister Tom Tugendhat and the former foreign affairs committee chair Alicia Kearns, both prominent Conservative critics of China, had called on Starmer to use the meeting to raise with Xi the plight of UK nationals including Lai.
The former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, who is also sanctioned by Beijing, condemned Starmer’s attempt to resusitate relations. “President Xi has no regard for the UK and is trashing all the rules-based order around the world, from human rights to the WTO, China just ignores what it is told,” he said.
No British prime minister has met Xi since Theresa May visited Beijing in 2018 in the midst of a trade push during Brexit negotiations, though Boris Johnson spoke to the Chinese president during the pandemic.
Since then, relations have significantly cooled because of cyber threats, a human rights crackdown in Hong Kong and the sanctions against MPs. The foreign secretary, David Lammy, visited China last month in the first signal that the new Labour government saw a renewal of better ties as a diplomatic priority. Reeves, who is understood to be taking a leading role in pursuing new economic opportunities with China, will head to Beijing in January.
