Whenever the Labour Government mentions China, I get a frisson of deja-vu. Whenever I see what Labour propose to do with regards to that relationship, I get an icy chill and, frankly, when they justify it all, I get a severe bout of eye-roll. We are all now learning not to take Labour’s words at face value.

I don’t really do this, but on this subject, I will. I’d place a decent bet I know more about the intricacies of this tricky topic than the current Foreign Secretary does.

For a year and half this was my policy area so, yes, that’s a bold call, but it stands. Sir Keir Starmer seems to think he knows about farming because his ‘first job was on a farm’ (although in other articles from the past, he suggests it wasn’t) Well, I can do a better than that:

For starters, I have sat down in talks with the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi more times than David Lammy. I’ve read more briefings, and had more input than he can possibly have done in four months. There are more, and more significant, metrics too, but I won’t bore you. Or I’m not allowed to. So, bold call – but I can back it up.

It’s clear, as has been the case for two years, that the Labour spin machine, claims ad nauseam that they’ve invented the wheel. We evidently lost the ear of the public in July, but that doesn’t mean our warnings were wrong.

From immigration controls to foreign relations, foreign inward investment and green-transition, Labour want you to think they have had new and original ideas about how to tackle these things, and then either copied or quietly tweaked (or in worst cases weakened) exactly what had already been happening under the Conservatives – you know – that party whose fault everything is – apparently.

They hoped nobody would notice, or care, being so glad they were back. The problem is this is recent history. People still exist to disprove this utter moonshine, and in some cases have a platform to do so.

So, before we head to Beijing let’s just set the record straight. Our relations with European capitals, greatly improved over Ukraine, did not need a major reset, Labour just want one. It’s the closest they can get to rejoining the EU.

Labour did not invent “smash the gangs” and, work they have already taken credit for, is in reality the result of two years of relentless focus on breaking criminal smuggling gangs, when they were not in government. There were big successes under the Conservatives, it’s just that as a tactic, on its own, it won’t stop the boats. You need a deterrent. They scrapped ours.

Right. On to the relationship with China.

The last government engaged on trade but were very clear eyed and vigilant on where, on that, human rights, and state interference they were abusing the rules. The balancing act was to stay at the centre of two very competing positions.

He may not agree – he was often scathing – but we did heed the warnings of Iain Duncan Smith, and others about China.  Equally, we heeded global trade experts who thought non-interaction was pointless weakness and struggled to see how you completely cut trading with China without it being seriously economically damaging. Note to critics: the US hasn’t cut trade with China and although Trump is about to re-write the rules on that, America will still not be ‘tradeless’ with them in future.

Labour is offering the UK a reset (their new favourite word – after ‘tax’) of the whole UK-China relationship.

This time they are resetting it, but seem completely unaware, or worse uncaring, of what they are giving away for the promise of getting whatever it is they want. If it’s the former it’s because they’ve convinced themselves, again, that they are the only political grown-ups in town, and that the Chinese will see this, and just be nicer to them. If it’s the latter, it’s another dodgy deception that needs exposing.

In the desperate search for economic growth – and given how lousy the growth forecasts in the Budget were, it is desperate – Labour will give the Chinese some things they’ve wanted for a very long time, and the Conservatives  were wise to avoid.

Foreign office ministers and the Foreign Secretary have listened perhaps a little too easily to a Foreign Office that was always uncomfortable with the Conservative position that however much we engaged on trade, China was not our friend, and often did not behave like one. The system seemed to think China would be our friend the more we traded goods, not criticisms the Chinese didn’t like.

I don’t know about you but I’m happy to talk to, but inherently distrust, the ‘friendship’ of a system that can make a Foreign Minister literally disappear. Qin Gang might have been the subject of this piece, but he vanished. There was something mafioso about how he went from the man we’d meet for important talks, to the man who was too unwell to meet, to a man who apparently did not exist, in a matter of weeks. One day you are under house arrest, the next day you’re under a house!

The Washington Post says he’s alive and well and selling books but honestly, who knows. You get the point.

The last government always approached relations with China with polite but resolute caution, and despite criticism from our own side, never ignored the elephants in the room.

“Do we have to raise Xinjiang, every time?” is something I heard one official say ahead of a meeting with a senior Chinese govt official. It’s the only time I heard the then Foreign Secretary, and his entire team say one word, instantly, in unison.

“Yes”

There’s a diplomatic choreography for getting to know your Chinese counterpart. The first meeting can be quite formal and stiff. You read your prepared words, Wang Yi reads his, there is a bit of reading to each other in the middle, and then at the end is the bit to listen out for: are they offering another meeting, and did he hint at what might be up for discussion on their downsides? What do they want in return?

The second time it’s more engaged, he spots people he’s seen before, there is eyeline engagement and you watch carefully for the repetition, however subtle, of things from the first meeting: is that issue what he, or his President really wants?

The third time we actually discussed, rather than raised (as we always did) those areas he’d rather not bring up but knew we would; Hong Kong, the Uighurs, Jimmy Lai (now actually in court, where the trial will be just fair enough to ensure a conviction) and we always argued sanctions on UK MPs should be lifted.

Maybe if Britain just stopped talking about these things relations would indeed be better. We shouldn’t.

Of course, nobody takes a phone into these meetings, or buildings. There are watchers on the sidelines who are not just there to listen in to what we visitors say but to check the Chinese Foreign Ministry team does not stray too far off the party line. The Chinese Communist Party has its own foreign affairs team after all. They don’t always agree with the Foreign Ministry. They usually win. Wang Yi however is very close to President Xi, so he has far more leeway than most.

I went to Beijing in 2023 and we knew the Chinese wanted the meeting to go well. The sign was the British embassy staff telling us the usual bits of petty bureaucratic interference visited on them each day had ceased 24 hours before we arrived.

One topic raised in our meetings with the Deputy President and later the Foreign Minister was their desire for a new embassy on the Old Royal Mint site opposite the Tower of London. In one of the best examples of how our two systems don’t fully understand each other they simply refused to accept that local councillors in Tower Hamlets could overturn a planning decision. Democracy is just so infuriating.

To a Chinese minister, there is no point being in Government if you can’t just overrule local politicians. After all they do it all the time. Some might wish we did the same here, but right now we don’t. Let’s just say there were “issues” with the proposal and Tower Hamlets councillors happened, completely separately, and possibly for different reasons, to agree.

Now Angela Rayner has called the exact same application and design in to be looked at by central government. There’s no guarantee it will get the green light by this action but this is exactly what the Chinese wanted all along, and if it ever is granted, that will be the sign we really are giving in, in a bid for a relationship that might- only might – boost growth, but gives away things we really probably should not.

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