Katy Balls Katy Balls

Is it wise for Starmer to meet Xi?

Keir Starmer (Getty Images)

Keir Starmer will today become the first prime minister in six years to meet with Xi Jinping. The Labour leader is due to meet with the Chinese president at the G20 summit in Brazil as Starmer’s government attempts a wider reset of UK/China relations. This is being pitched by Downing Street as a move to ‘stable and pragmatic engagement’ with Beijing following a cooling of relations in recent years. The last prime minister to meet with Xi was Theresa May in 2018 who hailed a ‘golden era of UK-China relations’. Since then, however, allegations of espionage, human rights abuses, the national security law in Hong Kong and the pandemic have seen relations sour.

The Prime Minister has said his focus at the summit is Ukraine – so China’s military support for Russia could be a topic of conversation. However, Starmer is trying to pitch this as more constructive than a meeting to simply give Beijing a ticking off.

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