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Sir Keir Starmer wraps up a four-day visit to China on Saturday, attacked by Donald Trump for his “dangerous” liaison with Beijing, dubbed “Sir Kowtow” in the right-wing press and accused by opponents of coming away with little to show for his schmoozing.
Amid tight security and surrounded by aides carrying burner phones, Starmer even ended the trip being asked whether he had been advised to get dressed under the duvet to avoid spy cameras in his room. “No I wasn’t, and I didn’t,” he exclaimed.
Facing a threatened Labour Party insurrection at home, did the prime minister — dubbed by critics “never here Keir” — ever wonder whether this trip was worth it? Starmer was adamant: repairing relations with China was firmly in the national interest.
“Engaging with China is how we secure growth for British businesses, support good jobs at home and protect our national security,” he said, arguing that ending the diplomatic “ice age” with Beijing would have a direct impact on voters’ lives.
The initial fruits of this improved relationship were relatively modest. Downing Street claimed that the first prime ministerial visit to China in eight years had yielded £2.2bn in export deals and around £2.3bn in “market access wins”, including in agriculture, sport and life sciences.
Whisky tariffs will be cut from 10 per cent to 5 per cent on Monday and Downing Street said it was “fully confident” President Xi Jinping would deliver on an agreement to introduce visa-free travel for UK citizens heading to China. There will be what one British official called “talks about talks” on liberalisation of services.
To put these supposed gains in perspective, Starmer’s government claimed it had secured £150bn of US investment at the time of Trump’s state visit last September, even if the “tech prosperity deal” signed by the two leaders had yet to materialise.
But Starmer insists the “warm and constructive” relationship he struck with Xi on Thursday will pay dividends in the longer term. His allies claim deals worth “tens of billions” of pounds will materialise over the next decade, from energy to financial services and the arts.
One British official said the Starmer-Xi meeting was “a strong signal that it’s OK to do business with the Brits. It reinforces a message of engagement”. Before Starmer’s election in July 2024, relations with Beijing had gone into a deep freeze under successive Conservative governments.
Even some of Starmer’s critics within the Labour Party concede that the prime minister is deftly handling tricky geopolitical relationships — with Trump’s America, post-Brexit Europe and Xi Jinping — trying to leverage more trade out of all of them.
One senior Labour MP said Starmer owed a lot to the advice of his veteran national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, who joined the UK prime minister in what was billed as a “tête-à-tête” with Xi on Thursday.
“He’s surrounded by fools when it comes to domestic policy,” the MP said. “He really needs some political advice of the calibre of Powell’s diplomatic advice.”
On Friday Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch used Starmer’s visit to highlight their different approach to economic policy, accusing the government of being “reliant” on bringing in goods from China.
“Keir Starmer went to China desperate for its support because his entire economic policy is reliant on Chinese imports: wind turbines, solar panels and car batteries,” she wrote on X.
Robert Jenrick, the Reform UK MP who recently defected from the Conservatives, accused Starmer of offering “himself as tribute” to Beijing for little economic benefit.
“He’s made concessions that weaken our security in the naive hope of better relations — and he’s still left Beijing pretty much empty-handed,” Jenrick said.
Critics of the UK’s approach to China also highlighted what they saw as snubs from the Chinese leadership towards Starmer during the trip.
Luke de Pulford, head of the hawkish Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said China’s decision to have Starmer visit the Forbidden City with only a tour guide, with other tourists still milling around, was a clear slight.
When US President Donald Trump visited the Forbidden City in 2017, President Xi gave him a private tour. “The Chinese put a huge amount of effort into signalling importance through protocol,” de Pulford said on X.
But Starmer’s experience was not out of line with that of many other foreign leaders who have been given more modest tours of the complex.
On the whole, China was receptive to his trip, since it exploits gaps created by Trump’s attacks on Nato and his western trading partners.
Starmer’s visit follows others since November by middle powers traditionally aligned with the US including French, Spanish, South Korean, Canadian, Finnish and Irish leaders or heads of state. Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz is due in the coming weeks.
Starmer brushed off Trump’s criticism of his “dangerous” interactions with China on trade, noting the US president himself will be in Beijing in April.
Whether any of this high-level diplomacy will do Starmer much good at home in the near term is a trickier question. Some of his MPs would rather he spent more time in Number 10 getting a grip on his drifting administration. “It’s not functioning,” was one minister’s bleak assessment.
