Is Starmer Finally Realising That Relying on the ‘Special Relationship’ Is Perilous?

Sometimes, boring things are very important – like dental hygiene, tax codes, and your middle sibling. Keir Starmer’s visit to China (hot on the heels of Canada’s Mark Carney, and Germany’s Friedrich Merz) is very much of that genre. 

The chemistry between the prime minister and Xi Jinping is unlikely to inspire romantic fancam edits any time soon. But their pragmatic courtship perhaps signals that middle-ranking Western powers are considering the benefits of a loveless arrangement with China over relying on an increasingly toxic relationship with the planet’s crappy boyfriend, the United States of America. 

Esther Perel, over to you.

It seems like only yesterday that Xi was popping down the pub with David Cameron, politely knocking back a pint of IPA in the interest of kicking off a golden era of Sino-Anglo relations. 

Since 2015, however, talk has been less of deepening economic and cultural ties, and more of sanctions and counter-sanctions over Xinjiang, banning Huawei from the UK’s 5G networks, reducing reliance on Chinese supply chains and anxiety over espionage. Goodbye post-Chequers date nights; hello aircraft carrier drills in the Pacific. 

While this more aggressive posture is partly to do with the UK’s own strategic interests, notably the relationship between Xi and Vladimir Putin, much of it is an extension of American foreign policy (‘Sorry, Mum says we can’t play anymore’). 

But Donald Trump’s unpredictability regarding tariffs, European defence, and most recently Greenland has made even the most diehard of Atlanticists worry about the wisdom of staking so much of the UK’s economic and geopolitical wellbeing on the world’s drunkest teetotaller. 

‘De-risking’ our relationship with China was purely framed around our dependence on its exports. The past two years have demonstrated that relying on America is no less perilous. 

For the growth-minded prime minister and his beleaguered chancellor, the conditions are ripe for turning towards the other global superpower to make the line go up. 

As the Beijing Daily put it: “If the Sino-British relationship in the past few years has been characterised by ‘politics taking precedence and economics taking a backseat’, then this time it is more like a reordering of ‘economics taking precedence and politics taking a backseat’.”

So, what’s been agreed between Starmer and Beijing? The headline measure is visa-free travel, up to 30 days, for UK tourists. The groundwork has been laid for a services trade deal (great news for us Brits, who don’t really make anything). There’ll be some cooperation over standards and regulation and it’ll be easier for UK firms to operate in China. 

And in a transparent attempt to wedge ‘stop the boats’ talking points into any old nonsense, the UK and China will share intelligence to disrupt people-smuggling gangs, including those supplying small boat engines and parts made in China. Take that one with a hefty pinch of Maldon’s finest – Ali Express will probably still deliver to European coastlines. 

All in all, not a huge deal. But it’s enough to set off growls and cage-rattling from the White House. Overnight, Trump said it was “very dangerous” for the UK to pursue closer ties with China, and “even more dangerous, I think, for Canada.” 

Trump has threatened his neighbours to the north with punitive tariffs should Carney go through with the economic deals he negotiated on his recent trip to Beijing. While he hasn’t yet made similar suggestions regarding the UK, twitchy types in Downing Street will recall that it was less than a fortnight ago that he threatened to stick us with tariffs (along with seven other European countries) for defending the sovereignty of Greenland. 

Where are we now? It’s probably not the case that all obstacles and uncertainties have been swept away between the UK and China.  

It wasn’t long ago that Rishi Sunak characterised China as “an economic threat to our security and an epoch-defining challenge”. Starmer’s still being hammered over the decision to greenlight Beijing’s new embassy in London. 

Where we’ve ended up is with a deeply incoherent posture towards our third-largest trading partner and fifth-largest export market. But there’s only one country that’s taking aggressive measures to stop us from having an independent foreign policy. And it’s supposedly our closest ally, just a hop, skip and a jump across the pond.