David Lammy is making preparations to travel to China in September, which would be within the first one hundred days of his tenure as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is currently in discussions for a trip to Beijing that would make it clear that the United Kingdom is interested in resuming high-level engagement with the country.
There has been no formal confirmation of a date. According to a representative for the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO), “foreign secretary travel will be confirmed in the usual way.”
Lammy had intended to fly to China during the time that Labour was still in opposition earlier this summer; however, his journey was postponed following the announcement that the general election would be held. Following the victory of Labour in the election, Lammy had the opportunity to meet with Wang Yi, the foreign minister of China, during a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on July 26.
At the meeting that took place in Laos, the Foreign Secretary “set out that the government would cooperate where we can, compete where we need to, and challenge where we must,” according to the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Organisation (FCDO).
It is expected that Lammy will be subjected to pressure to adopt a strong stance on human rights. It was in his capacity as shadow foreign secretary in 2023 that he repeated the view of the Labour Party, which was that it would take action to acknowledge China’s treatment of Uyghurs as genocide.
Seven legislators, including Helena Kennedy, a member of the Labour Party, have been subjected to penalties by China as a result of their criticism of the country’s human rights record.
An “audit” of the United Kingdom’s relations with China is now being carried out by Whitehall. According to the Labour Party’s manifesto, the purpose of this audit is to “improve the United Kingdom’s capability to understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities that China poses.”
In August of 2023, James Cleverly left his position as foreign secretary and made his final trip to China. Hawkish backbenchers put a lot of pressure on the Conservative government to take a strong stance against China.
A senior British source who works on the relationship between the United Kingdom and China stated that during the time that the Conservatives were in power, there was no senior-level contact with China, with the exception of the visit that Cleverly made.
“If you take a look at the messages that Starmer has sent out on foreign policy, you will notice that he has brought up the topic of re-establishing connections with the rest of the world. If China is not included in that, then it does not qualify as re-establishing connections with the rest of the globe.
Ruby Osman, a policy adviser on China at the Tony Blair Institute, stated that “despite having their own—sometimes more serious—differences with Beijing, the United States of America, France, Germany, Australia, and Italy have all still had head-of-state meetings with President Xi.”
In the meantime, the United Kingdom has appeared to be experiencing a level of engagement with China that has been nearly unprecedented during the past few years. In the past five years, we have only received three visits from ministers, and most of them have been empty. In order to overcome this problem, Labour will need to reorient the atmosphere in Westminster so that it acknowledges that engagement does not necessarily entail agreement.
According to Osman, “David Lammy has been laying the groundwork for increased participation since a significant amount of time before the election… In addition to this, there is a high probability that the Chinese side will have a strong desire to increase involvement. The goal of Beijing will be to use the election as a chance to start over in terms of ties after a turbulent few years.
Catherine West, who is now a minister in the Foreign Office, went to China in the spring of last year in order to meet with senior officials from the Chinese government. At the time, she stated that she had brought up the worries of Labour regarding Chinese intervention in British democracy and national security, and she emphasised that “this is something we will act on in government.”