Keir Starmer responds as strain mounts to confront Chinese chief on historic journey
Keir Starmer said he will raise ‘issues that need to be raised’ during a trip to China as he prepares for crunch talks with President Xi Jinping
Keir Starmer with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Brazil in 2024(Image: Getty Images)
Keir Starmer has said he will raise “issues that need to be raised” as he faces pressure to challenge China ’s President over human rights in a high-stakes meeting in Beijing on Thursday.
The Prime Minister will meet Xi Jinping on a four-day trip to China – the first by a British PM in eight years after UK-China relations deteriorated under previous Tory PMs. Mr Starmer is on a mission to boost ties with the world ’s second largest economy, but he faces a high-wire balancing act to drum up Chinese business while balancing security and human rights concerns.
Speaking to journalists as he jetted into Beijing, Mr Starmer refused to be drawn on what topics he might raise in the meeting with the Chinese premier. Thorny topics include the case of Jimmy Lai, a pro-Democracy activist and British national, who faces spending the rest of his life in prison, and persecution of Uyghur Muslims forced into “re-education camps”.
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Asked about Mr Lai, the Prime Minister said: “On all the trips I’ve done, I’ve always raised issues that need to be raised, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself on the specifics until I’ve had the opportunity. But part of the reason for engaging with China is so that issues where we disagree can be discussed, and the issues where we agree can be progressed, and so that’s the approach.”
He declined to say whether he would raise the treatment of Uyghurs ahead of the meeting. Yasmine Ahmed, UK Director of Human Rights Watch, urged the PM not to “abandon principle in pursuit of profit” during his visit.
She said: “If Starmer leaves human rights concerns at the door, not only would it weaken Britain’s hand and diminish its standing, but it could leave the UK vulnerable to economic pressure in the future.
“Having guardrails in place isn’t only the right thing to do, it is in Britain’s long term economic and security interests.” Meanwhile, the PM said there was “no evidence” his phone had been hacked by the Chinese following reports state-sponsored hackers targeted the phones of close aides to Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak between 2021 and 2024.
Speaking en-route to China, he told journalists: “No, there’s no evidence of that. We’ve got robust schemes, security measures in place as you’d expect.”
It is understood that officials have switched to burner devices for the trip for security reasons. Former Security Minister Tom Tugendhat joked that the British delegation had been forced to take a “burner plane” to China to protect from espionage threats.
“Starmer’s circus aren’t just taking burner phones to China to beat spying, they’re taking a burner plane!,” he posted on X. “The government jet is staying home because it would need to be guarded round the clock to stop China putting bugs on it – so they’ve hired a plane!”
The UK Government has chartered planes in the past to accommodate large business delegations travelling with the PM, including during a recent visit to India.
