China has set a bear trap for Keir Starmer – and our naive PM is walking straight into it |
The UK pushed hard to secure the release of Jimmy Lai, the newspaper publisher and British citizen who was a leading light in Hong Kong’s brutally suppressed pro-democracy movement. So, too, did press freedom and human rights campaigners. But the Beijing-appointed high court judges in the former colony convicted him anyway, finding Lai guilty last week on fake charges of trying to “destabilise” the Chinese Communist party (CCP). For Xi Jinping, China’s dictator-emperor, there is no greater crime.
Protesting to China’s ambassador, the UK’s foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, condemned the trial as “politically motivated”. She’s right, of course – but her angry words will make no difference. Beijing’s contempt for Britain’s views is as painfully obvious as the UK’s weakness and indecision in the face of Chinese hubris. The breaking of its solemn promise to respect Hong Kong’s freedoms after the 1997 handover typifies the arrogance and untrustworthiness of Xi’s CCP.
The Lai travesty forms a sombre, unpropitious backdrop to Keir Starmer’s planned trade and business-focused visit to Beijing and Shanghai in January. Any half-decent Chinese fortune-teller would deem it ill-starred and suggest he stay home. Yet speaking at a City banquet this month, Starmer said it was his “duty” to go, to improve relations with a country he called “a defining force in technology, trade and global governance”. While admitting China posed “national security threats”, he downplayed them.
This was typical Starmer, pursuing a balancing act amid overwhelming imbalances, seeking firm middle ground in a plashy bog. It’s true Britain’s stagnant economy badly needs foreign investment. It’s true China is a major export market. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, visiting China in January, spoke of a £1bn opportunity for jobs and growth.
Yet in terms of Britain’s security and democracy, the global order and national self-respect, the price of doing business with this predatory........