Keir Starmer will become the first UK prime minister in six years to meet the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, promising to turn the page on UK-China relations by building “a pragmatic and serious relationship”.
Starmer and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, have been pursuing a thawing of relations with the world’s second-largest economy on pragmatic grounds, suggesting that the UK cannot achieve its growth ambitions without better terms with China.
