BEIJING -- U.K.Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrives in Beijing on Wednesday for a four-day visit to China aimed at repairing ties and expanding opportunities for British businesses in the world's second-largest economy.He is the first British leader to come to Beijing since Theresa May in 2018.
The relationship has deteriorated in recent years over growing concern about Chinese spying and surveillance, China’s support for Russia in the Ukraine war and Beijing’s crackdown on civil liberties in Hong Kong, the former British colony.Those issues remain, but both sides are emphasizing that they should “seek common ground while managing differences," as Zheng Zeguang, China's Ambassador to the U.K., wrote in a commentary for The Times of London this week.Starmer, whose center-left Labour Party government has struggled to deliver the economic growth it promised, is bringing a delegation of more than 60 British business and cultural leaders with him.
His agenda includes Shanghai, the nation's financial capital and a major port, as well as meeting Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders in Beijing.Wang Yiwei, a European affairs expert at Renmin University of China, said that Britain's strengths in finance, consulting and other services dovetail well with a growing appetite in China for services such as health and elderly care.
“It’s a huge market,” he said.The U.K.had a trade deficit with China in 2025, importing more goods than it exported to the nation of 1.4 billion people, but it had a trade surplus in services.“With recent Chinese policy directives focused on boosting domestic consumption and further opening the services sector to international businesses, we see significant opportunities for growth for U.K.
businesses,” the China-Britain Business Council said.For many governments, the disruption to global trade under U.S.President Donald Trump has made expanding trade and investment even more imperative.Both Britain and China have been buffeted by U.S....