China trip criticised as a return to 'operation kow tow' by former Tory leader

Rachel Reeves has been warned that she and Labour have abandoned their principles by seeking deals with China in a desperate attempt to save Britain’s faltering economy.

- DAVID MADDOX

The chancellor doubled down on her controversial trip to Beijing as concerns grow that she will return home next week to a full-blown economic crisis. But her visit was condemned by Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader and prominent China critic, who likened it to “dealing with Nazi Germany in the 1930s”, and by former Hong Kong governor Christopher Patten who called it “delusional”.

As she arrived in China yesterday, Ms Reeves said she was willing to have “uncomfortable conversations” with its Communist rulers – and defended the trip as a “significant milestone” in Britain’s ties with the country.

At the opening of the 11th UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue, where Ms Reeves was greeted by vice-premier He Lifeng, she said the global situation was “more complex and more challenging” than at the last summit in 2019, adding: “It is precisely in such times that practical, pragmatic cooperation between the world’s major economies is most needed.”

The Treasury added that Ms Reeves would explicitly raise the case of British national and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai, who has been detained in Hong Kong since 2020, as well as allegations of the use of forced labour in Xinjiang and the Chinese government’s sanctions against UK parliamentarians.

But Sir Iain, who has been sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), feared Ms Reeves is returning to the now-discredited David Cameron policy of keen business ties with Beijing, which Whitehall officials dubbed “operation kowtow”.

Speaking exclusively to