'A relationship reset'

The shift in Labour's approach to China

- Dan Sabbagh

Before the election, Labour’s approach to China was forthright. It promised to declare China’s repression of its Uyghur Muslim minority as a genocide.

In 2021, when its MPs united to support a genocide amendment to a trade bill, it voted with Tory rebels and failed to defeat Boris Johnson’s government by just 11 votes.

But now recriminations are swirling after the prosecution of two Britons accused of spying for China was dropped. A refusal to describe China as a national security threat has reinforced Labour’s softened approach to Beijing and sharpened focus on Keir Starmer’s national security adviser, Jonathan Powell.

Critics say Labour is hastily pursuing a return to the “Golden Era” rapprochement led by David Cameron in 2015, when China’s president, Xi Jinping, came on a state visit and Beijing was given approval to build nuclear power stations in the UK.

That era ended when China crushed the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and repeatedly engaged in cyber espionage against British targets. Beijing then became a “decisive enabler” in supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine by supplying critical components.

"In opposition, there was a strong sense of moral conviction on Labour party policy on China,” says Luke de Pulford, director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a cross-party group of China-sceptic legislators. “Now that seems to have fallen by the wayside in favour of trade [and] investment, sacrificed at the altar of perceived economic gain.”