Almost immediately after being appointed as foreign secretary, David Cameron’s ties with China generated difficult headlines for Rishi Sunak’s government.
Cameron’s warmth towards China during his own time as prime minister prompted Luke de Pulford, the director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, to argue that Sunak had scored an own goal in appointing him.
Cameron’s time in office has been described as a “golden era” for UK-China relations. But now, in a very different political climate, de Pulford has accused the new foreign secretary of “shilling for the UK’s biggest security threat”. Catherine West, Labour’s shadow minister for Asia and the Pacific, has also said Cameron has questions to answer over what role he has played since leaving office in a Chinese infrastructure project in Sri Lanka.
