Britain’s King Charles III, right, shakes hands with Keir Starmer. The monarch invited the Labor Party leader to become prime minister and to form a new government after the party’s landslide general election victory. (Yui Mok / Pool Photo / Associated Press)
On July 5th, Britain welcomed the first substantive change in government in 14 years, which had featured variations of coalition or majority governments led by the Conservative Party. Sir Keir Starmer was the first Labour Party leader elected Prime Minister – via a General Election – since Sir Tony Blair in 1997. Whilst 23 years apart, both 1997 and 2024 elections saw landslide victories for Labour, as voters turned out in droves to protest the untenable governance under the two Tory governments – respectively under Sir John Major and Rishi Sunak.
David Lammy, a self-described “progressive realist”, has been swiftly appointed Foreign Secretary – a logical choice, given his extensive experience operating as the Shadow Foreign Secretary over the past two and half years. Rich in trans-Atlantic connections – no less thanks to his excellent educational pedigree and training in Harvard – whilst championing a foreign policy approach that is smack in the centre of his party, Lammy has openly defended both Ukraine and Israel in their respective actions, whilst calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The New Labour Government’s China Policy
Those who had hoped that with a change in government would come a substantial reorientation to Britain’s China policy, could well be somewhat disappointed. The past few years have seen a rapid souring of sentiments relative to what had once been touted as a ‘Golden Age’ of Sino-British engagement. Former NATO Chief George Robertson identified China as amongst the major “challenges” to Britain. A combination of politicised resentment following the fall-out over COVID-19, growing bipartisan angst amongst British legislators over domestic developments within China, as well as escalating allegations over purported espionage, have all contributed towards the increasingly salient securitisation of the bilateral relationship.
Whilst trade with and investments into China remains integral to post-Brexit British economic interests, and has been largely preserved through the enduring ties of long-standing British stalwarts operating in China – such as HSBC, Swire, and Jardine Matheson, the overarching timbre of the conversation has shifted towards one that is effectively anchored in attitudes of mistrust, cynicism, and jaded exasperation. Beijing is irritated by what it perceives to be the fervour with which British politicians have instrumentalised ideological tropes to score symbolic and rhetorical wins, in echoing American criticisms and portrayals of China.
London, on the other hand, is struggling to cope with and accept a China whose strategic positions and diplomatic rhetoric have become more trenchant; many in the political establishment harbour ideological dispositions and priors that run contrary to their perceptions of China’s rise. Such judgments have of course been amplified by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which provided copious ammunition to those who are bent on lumping together China, Russia, North Korea, Iran -- in constructing a bifurcated worldview where only ‘one side’ could be permitted to prevail. These structural causes for continued deterioration in Sino-British ties, albeit gradual, will not go away anytime soon.
With that said, we should also recognise that Starmer’s foreign policy priorities in the short term are unlikely to include a comprehensive and all-out containment strategy against China. As compared with the Conservatives, the current Labour Party seems less wedded to Cold War nostalgia-fused hubris accompanied by unrealistic assessments of British capacities in the 21st century. Starmer’s leadership seems to embody a modicum of instrumental pragmatism – especially on the part of several dominant voices in Labour foreign policy circles today, including the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
Having focussed vast swathes of his campaign on the domestic blunders and failures of the previous administration, Starmer finds himself in a position to decide how far – and by how much – he ought to wipe the Tory slate clean on fronts such as Britain’s relations with the EU, the U.S., China, and Russia. In making economic growth and stabilisation a core part of his campaign premise, it is likely that Starmer would focus on rekindling and strengthening ties both trans-Atlantically and with European states that have felt alienated by David Cameron’s asinine ‘Brexit’ move,’ as determined by the 2016 referendum. Starmer’s recent embrace by Macron in their meeting – in both literal and physical senses – typifies the EU-affirmative agenda high on Starmer’s list.
Nor, indeed, could the Labour frontbench afford to appear meek in the face of pressures from its own back-benchers, as well as the two largest opposition parties, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats, neither of which is particularly open to a more positive outlook on China and bilateral relations. Confronting Russia via the war in Ukraine and shoring up engagement with the military-defence establishment in Washington – given the increasingly likely return of Trump – is hence another key priority. All of this to say Starmer’s team is unlikely to possess the bandwidth or desire to push for an active reset to Sino-British relations.
China needs a new policy on Britain
Should China seek to repair its relations with Britain? Comparisons over who is the larger trading partner to the other are – like counting the grains in a pile of sand – somewhat missing the point. As a P5 nation with veto power in the UN Security Council, but also as a key player across both the Atlantic and European strategic theatres, Britain’s real importance to China lies in its less tangible assets: its sociocultural and norm-setting powers, its influence over international institutions and popular discourses, and its financial system’s role in directing the outflows of Chinese capital into Europe and the Gulf.
Beijing should seize upon the arrival of the new Labour government to offer constructive signals that it is keen on fundamentally improving bilateral ties. Yet what should its new policy look like? The crux rests in ensuring that Britain sees genuine upsides and positive value-added in dialogues and collaborations, whilst establishing clearly that non-negotiable areas must remain out-of-bounds.
First, Beijing must diagnose and tackle head-on the roots of scepticism of British politicians. Accusing them of engaging in bad-faith besmirching, or dismissing outright – without elaboration – the allegations and concerns, would not go very far in swaying the undecided and moderate parliamentarians or diplomats in Britain, who find themselves increasingly wary to engage China in prospective collaboration. It is vital that China communicates faithfully that it does not possess the kind of aggressive ambition oft-attributed to it; it is equally advisable that diplomats in Beijing take into serious account the optics and impacts on hearts and minds of their actions, speeches, and public rhetoric.
Second, China and Britain need to harness the ‘magic’ of civil society-led engagements and backchannel diplomacy. The above adjustments could also prove essential in easing the popular and public antipathy towards China, as well as fostering more room for the much-needed people-to-people and culturally oriented exchanges that can withstand both the tests of time and partisanship. For track-2 and civilian-led efforts to succeed, however, both the Chinese and British governments must create and preserve the space for unfettered, candid, and constructive dialogues on both areas of convergence and divergence. On the former, the focus should be on figuring out possible solutions and room for complementarity – e.g. hydrogen electricity technologies that are applicable to electric vehicles; on the latter, both parties must come to develop principles and ‘guardrails’ that allow for genuine management of differences. The same level of contact and communication between the U.S. and China may not be replicable in the Sino-British context, but with excellent diplomats such as Dame Caroline Wilson at the helm at the British embassy in China, more can certainly be done – provided that the Chinese are willing and open.
Finally, Beijing should remember that Britain is an independent sovereign state. The decisions of its leaders will likely vary in accordance with the extents to which they see it is closer alignment with China, as opposed to the U.S., that can advance the interests of the British people – especially the middle-class voters who have shaped heavily this recent election. To disparage the entire country as merely docile ‘followers’ of the U.S., is neither accurate nor strategic from the perspective of building friendships and winning over critics. Instead, Beijing must rhetorically and substantively acknowledge that the UK is more than an ‘ally’ of the U.S., but a potential interlocutor with outsized rule-shaping powers – in the 21st century. That, in turn, is the much-needed silver lining and potential ‘pivot’ to the state of Sino-British relations.
