Sir Keir Starmer is preparing for a likely visit to China in the new year, Sky News understands.
Political editor Beth Rigby told the Electoral Dysfunction podcast with Baroness Harriet Harman that she had heard from two sources that the prime minister would make the trip – which will be controversial – at the end of January.
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She told the Labour peer: “Now, we’ve had this from a couple of different sources.
“As I understand it, it’s not been confirmed, but I guess until they get on the plane, these things are never confirmed.
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“But, you know, they might not really want people talking about the prime minister going to China, given the backdrop of the China spy case, and all of those allegations and all that controversy around China in the UK, the super embassy [proposal].”
She added: “But Harriet, what do you think? The prime minister should be going to China, shouldn’t he? Given that we economically want to grow ties with China? What do you think?”
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Baroness Harman replied: “I think he should, but I think there’s no naivety around the government about, although there’s opportunities to cooperate with China on climate change, on trade, that there’s also major challenges that they’ve got to be wary of – so I think they’ll be going, but with eyes wide open.”
The trip is likely to be controversial given the UK’s fractious relationship with China, made worse by recent allegations of spying in parliament.
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Earlier this week, MPs and peers were warned of new attempts to spy on them by China.
The security service MI5 sent a warning to those working in Westminster about two recruitment headhunters to watch out for who are working for Chinese security services.
It followed the collapse of a prosecution of two people suspected of spying on behalf of China.
Rigby said the trip would be a “massive moment”, noting that the last prime minister to visit China was Theresa May in 2018.
Last month Donald Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea.
The US president described the talks with China’s president as “amazing” and said “on the scale of one to 10, the meeting with Xi was 12”.
You can listen to the Electoral Dysfunction episode in full from 6am tomorrow.
