British PM’s recent visiting China and his meeting with President Xi make most people think that China-British relations has been improved due to pragmatic purpose. I hereby want to give a short analysis on Starmer’s strategic motives behind.

First of all, some comment that UK wants to get closer to China in order to balance the relation with the White House. I think this is totally misconceived. After the Brixit, geopolitically UK can only rely on US for alliance. This basic strategy cannot be changed even though Trump’s policies are at odds with Labour’s progressive approaches. You can see that Starmer brought along a group of businessmen to China.

The Prime Minister aims on mainly commercial ties with China for British economy. At this material time, Trump’s relations with China is fairly good and Trump also even planned an official visit to China in April this year.

So far Starmer’s visit would not betray Trump and conflict with American political and economic interests, this will not affect UK’s special relationship with US. Don’t mix Starmer’s visit with that by Canadian PM Carney and other European leaders. Their objectives are different.

Further, I think Starmer has another mission. He might have sent some secret messages to the Chinese side for Trump and paved some framework for the coming Summit with Xi in April. For China-British relations, the main political issue is about human rights, in particular, the Hong Kong situation.

From the perspective of pragmatic tradition, Starmer skillfully choose to visit China before the sentencing of Jimmy Lai by the National Security Court in Hong Kong. This can avoid any diplomatic and political pressure from all sides.

For China, Starmer’s visit is strategically welcome. Firstly, UK is still a power in international relations. Starmer’s visit can confirm China’s status in the world. Secondly, this can give a political blow to those anti-China supporters in the UK. Thirdly, diversity in trade and economic ties certainly will boost Beijing’s bargaining power with the United States in the long run.

Regarding the future of China-United relations, I think it depends on two factors. If China’s relations with the United States is stable, London will prefer to have more closer engagement with Beijing.

Secondly, UK will not totally withdraw from Europe. If Germany, France accelerate their collaboration with China, I think any British PM will not just sit and wait and neglect its competitors in the European continent!