Keir Starmer has said he will “raise the issues that need to be raised” on human rights with China’s president, Xi Jinping, as he arrived in Beijing for the first trip to the country by a UK leader in eight years.
The prime minister has come under pressure from rights groups to try to secure the release of Jimmy Lai, the jailed former media tycoon and one of Hong Kong’s most significant pro-democracy voices.
Lai, a British citizen, faces spending the rest of his life in prison after he was found guilty by a Hong Kong court of national security offences in a case that the UK sees as politically motivated.
Starmer told reporters on the flight to China: “In the past on all the trips I’ve done, I’ve always raised issues that need to be raised. But part of the reason for engaging with China is so that issues where we disagree can be discussed.”
The Tory former security minister Tom Tugendhat said Starmer should have secured Lai’s release before visiting China.
The Conservative MP, who has been placed under sanctions by the Chinese regime, said: “The problem is, the prime minister has sat down at the card table and shown the Chinese emperor all of his cards.
“He’s effectively said: ‘I’m not going to play hardball with you,’ and the reason I know that’s what’s happened is because he’s turned up without securing the release,” he told BBC Radio Scotland.
Speaking on the same programme, Lai’s son Sebastien said his father was “not well” and was struggling with diabetes and heart issues.
Asked about Starmer raising the issue, he said: “He has to put conditionalities on it, because otherwise the Chinese are very happy for my father to just die, and die in prison.”
Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, has called for Lai’s immediate release and summoned the Chinese ambassador after his conviction.
In December, Lai’s children voiced alarm for their father’s health, describing his dramatic weight loss, teeth rotting and nails falling off while in solitary confinement.
Starmer may also raise the fate of the Uyghurs, a persecuted Muslim minority in China who have been co-opted into forced labour programmes.
In opposition, Labour pushed for formal recognition of China’s treatment of the Uyghurs as a genocide, with a number of senior party figures backing the move.
Downing Street has said that while Starmer wants to improve economic relations with China on the visit, he will maintain “guardrails” on national security and will not not trade one for the other. They said he would raise areas of disagreement, including human rights abuses.
Yasmine Ahmed, the UK director of Human Rights Watch, told the Guardian: “It’s imperative that Starmer doesn’t abandon principle in pursuit of profit during his visit to Beijing. At the very least, he needs to publicly press Xi for the release of Jimmy Lai and speak up for the dramatic erasure of freedoms in Hong Kong.”
She added: “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. Starmer should ensure that British values underpin any and all engagement with China, and central to these are a belief in universal human rights and the rule of law.”
Speaking to journalists, Starmer played down suggestions that his Downing Street operation could have been at risk from Chinese spying and hacking, amid broader concerns in the UK over Beijing’s espionage activities.
“No, there’s no evidence of that. We’ve got robust schemes, security measures in place as you’d expect,” he said.
