Sir Keir Starmer and his team will arrive in Beijing with “burner” phones and laptops in an effort to stop being spied on during their trip to China this week.
The prime minister is being accompanied by business leaders as he departs the UK for a five-day visit of the country in a bid to improve Sino-British trading relations.
Ahead of his departure, Sir Keir told ministers the UK had “veered from the golden age to the ice age in its relations with China” in recent years, and claimed his government would follow “a strategic and consistent strategy”.
But the trip, which is the first by a British prime minister since Theresa May’s visit in 2018, has also prompted concerns over security risks.
According to The Times, the prime minister and his team will be seeking to mitigate such risks by leaving all government equipment in the UK.
Instead, they will be taking disposable phones and laptops in an attempt to protect them from being spied on by their hosts – while other officials have been told not to bring any personal devices.
The prime minister’s official spokesperson had told reporters ahead of the trip that Sir Keir was confident that his phone was not being monitored by the Chinese, and that No 10 has “robust communication security measures in place”.
The measures come after an aide for then-prime minister Gordon Brown reportedly became the victim of a suspected “honeytrap” operation when his phone was stolen on a trip to China in 2008.
In a cabinet meeting ahead of his departure, Sir Keir said there were “significant business opportunities” on the table for the visit, but stressed that protecting the UK’s national security remains “non-negotiable”.
In what appeared to be a defence of his decision to take the trip, the prime minister said the UK was “missing out” by not engaging with China.
French president Emmanuel Macron has visited China three times, while German chancellor Friedrich Merz and US president Donald Trump are due to visit soon, he said.
The trip follows the approval of a new Chinese embassy in London and Sir Keir will face pressure from home to raise several difficult subjects with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, including China’s espionage activity.
The prime minister has also faced calls to raise the treatment of the Uighur minority and the imprisonment of Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigner and British national.
Mr Lai, 78, has been in detention for more than five years, much of that time in solitary confinement, having been arrested in 2020 under Hong Kong’s new national security law.
Last month, following Mr Lai’s conviction on sedition and conspiracy charges, foreign secretary Yvette Cooper called for his “immediate release” and the Chinese ambassador was summoned to the Foreign Office.
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