Britain’s new Labour government may bring ‘clarity’ on China, but a major change of course is not expected
- Keir Starmer has promised a ‘full audit’ of relations but even if he adopts a more pragmatic approach, major divisions are expected to remain
China has said it hopes it can get relations with Britain back on the “right track” after the Labour Party’s landslide election victory, but most observers are not expecting a significant change in policy.
As prime minister, David Cameron hailed a “golden era” in relations between the two countries, but they have declined significantly since then and China has more recently been described as an “epoch-defining” security challenge for the UK.
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‘Full audit’ of Sino-UK ties as new Labour Party government looks for reset in bilateral relations
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government has promised to have a “full audit” of the country’s relations with China within 100 days.
Ruby Osman, a China specialist at the London-based Tony Blair Institute for Global Change established by the former prime minister, said this might provide some “clarity” after “the incoherency of the different China strategies” followed in recent years.
New Foreign Secretary David Lammy said before the election that Labour’s strategy towards China was to “compete, cooperate and challenge” with “progressive realism”.
“Progressive realism is all about [getting] things done. To solve some of the global problems, it means going out and talking to people that you’re not necessarily 100 per cent aligned on,” Osman said.
