Keir Starmer’s desperate cosying up to Beijing

Keir Starmer has met President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, telling the Chinese leader that he wants to build ‘consistent, durable, respectful’ relations. China’s official Xinhua news agency said there was ‘vast space for cooperation’. It was the first meeting between a British prime minister and Xi since 2018, and Starmer proposed further top-level meetings.

The timing was unfortunate, not only because of the shadow of Donald Trump, and the prospect that a cosying of British relations with Beijing will put the UK at odds with a harder line from Washington. Currently, events are coming to a head in a Hong Kong courthouse. As early as Tuesday a trio of hand-picked judges will sentence 45 pro-democracy campaigners to potentially heavy jail terms for ‘conspiracy to commit subversion’. They have been convicted under a draconian national security law imposed by Beijing, which criminalises political opposition in the city, sweeping away a mini constitution that had been agreed with Britain and was enshrined in international law.