China threatened to cancel key trade talks after UK minister’s Taiwan visit in June

Douglas Alexander, now secretary of state for Scotland, was a trade minister when he travelled to Taipei in late June. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

China threatened to cancel high-level trade talks with the UK earlier this year over a government minister’s visit to Taiwan, the Guardian can disclose.

Beijing told the British government it would pull its first trade and economic dialogue with the UK in seven years after Douglas Alexander, then a trade minister, travelled to Taipei in late June.