China rolls out the red carpet for Keir Starmer
PM holds three hours of ‘warm and constructive’ talks with Xi Jinping in bid
George Parker and Joe Leahy in Beijing
FT 29-01-2026
to revitalise London-Beijing relationship
Sir Keir Starmer admitted he had to humiliate himself at the court of Xi Jinping on Thursday, but not in the way some of his critics had expected.
“Xi’s a Manchester United fan and we arranged to get him a football signed by the players after their game against Arsenal on Sunday,” said one Downing Street insider. United beat Starmer’s Arsenal 3-2 and the prime minister was not happy: “He couldn’t believe he had to hand over that ball.”
But on more obviously awkward moments for Starmer in the Great Hall of the People — discussions on human rights, Hong Kong and Ukraine among them — the British prime minister seemed relaxed.
Starmer emerged from almost three hours in the company of Xi glowing about his “warm and constructive” talks with China’s president in which differences were discussed politely behind closed doors in the context of a revitalised London-Beijing relationship.
Starmer said ‘good progress’ was made at the meeting on exchanging information about irregular migration © Carl Court/AFP via Getty Images
Starmer and Chinese Premier Li Qiang look on as a memorandum of understanding is signed between the UK and China © Carl Court/AFP via Getty Images
The prime minister visited a Yunnan cuisine restaurant at which he thanked the staff in Mandarin © In & Out Restaurant via Reuters
Talks between Starmer and Xi ranged from Ukraine and human rights to their shared love of football © Carl Court/AFP via Getty Images
The opposition Conservatives have accused Starmer of “kowtowing” to Xi, but the British premier insists it is in the national interest to seek better relations with China at a time of global instability.
Starmer did not mention Donald Trump, but the US president’s erratic behaviour formed the backdrop for the talks, as Xi seeks to present himself as a friend to Europe when it comes to global peace, free trade and international order.
Although such claims will be met with scorn in many quarters, some British officials in Beijing this week admit the relationship with Xi’s China is nowadays more straightforward than the one with Trump’s US.
The first rule in forging ties with China, familiar to all visiting leaders to Beijing, is to avoid offending your host. Starmer, accompanied by his national security adviser Jonathan Powell, stuck closely to that convention.
In talks that spanned an 80-minute bilateral discussion with Xi and his team, a 20-minute “tête-à-tête” (also attended by the influential Powell) and an hour-long lunch, Starmer set about developing what he called a more “sophisticated” relationship with China.
Downing Street said Starmer raised the jailing of Jimmy Lai, the UK national and Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigner, but refused to say exactly what he said or, indeed, whether he called for Lai’s release from prison.
On the sensitive issue of Ukraine, Starmer raised the conflict but Downing Street again refused to say whether he had urged Xi to stop providing support to Vladimir Putin’s war effort. Instead Starmer’s spokesman blandly said they both agreed the war should end.
The two sides also agreed to carry out more parliamentary exchanges even though China has imposed travel bans on nine British parliamentarians and Chinese legislators are not allowed in the House of Commons as a consequence.
Had the prime minister persuaded Xi to lift the sanctions? Starmer said only that “progress” was being made.
His argument, shared by many of the 60 CEOs and British cultural leaders on the trip, is that such reticence is sensible and that more stable relations with China are essential and a key to opening exports for UK companies as well as for the projection of British soft power into a huge market.
“We made some really good progress on tariffs for whisky, on visa-free travel to China, and on information exchange co-operation on irregular migration,” Starmer told reporters.
The sight of Starmer coming to town bearing a signed football and pouring praise on his hosts gave Xi a golden chance to troll Trump with talk about how “both China and the UK support multilateralism and free trade”.
For China, the visit has so far played according to script, with Xi able to present himself as the voice of the calm superpower in contrast to the noise coming out of the US.
“For some time unilateralism, protectionism and power politics have been rampant, seriously undermining the international order,” Xi told Starmer.
“China has always adhered to a path of peaceful development, . . . no matter how China grows, it will not pose a threat to other countries,” he added.
The visit is seen by analysts as an opportunity for China to repair once warm relations with western countries such as the UK that were damaged by the tech and trade wars with the US, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and bilateral issues such as, in the case of Britain, spying and Hong Kong.
Starmer’s visit follows a similarly warm reception for Canadian prime minister Mark Carney.
The red carpet was rolled out for Starmer and the visit received generous coverage in the local media.
Over a lunch of mushroom soup, roasted cod, steamed beef with yam, fried shrimp, stewed vegetables, sweet rice dumplings, steamed rice cake and mango dessert, the two leaders enjoyed small talk with a heavy focus on football.
Xi also told Starmer that he was a big fan of Shakespeare and that one of the things he most enjoyed was reading the Bard’s complete works translated into Chinese, according to Number 10.
Later Starmer was given a tour of the Forbidden City and hosted by Chinese premier Li Qiang at a banquet.
In a signal that China was pulling out the stops to portray a favourable image of the visit, the Global Times, a Communist Party tabloid, highlighted Starmer’s visit to a Yunnan cuisine restaurant favoured by foreigners at which he thanked the staff in Mandarin, the article said.
On Friday the prime minister continues his four-day visit by travelling on to more business engagements in Shanghai.
Starmer told his delegation this week that they were “making history”, noting that this was the first time a British leader had taken such a party to Beijing since Theresa May in 2018.
It seems unlikely that there will be a similar hiatus before the next visit and Downing Street left the door open for a future visit to the UK by Xi.
Speaking to business leaders in the Great Hall of the People after his meeting with Xi, Starmer summed up his approach: “President Xi tells the story of blind men being presented with an elephant.
“One touches the leg and thinks it’s a pillow, another feels the belly and thinks it’s a wall. Too often this reflects how China is seen. But I profoundly believe that with broader and deeper engagement, this is our way of seeing the whole elephant and therefore building a more sophisticated relationship fit for these times.”
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