How significant are talks between China President Xi and UK PM Starmer?

CGTN Europe

President Xi held talks with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Rio at the G20 summit - the first meeting in six years between the countries' leaders.  Starmer said the UK wants a "serious and pragmatic" relationship with China.  Kerry Brown, Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute at King's College, London, describes the importance of these talks.  #china #uk #g20

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00:00I think what the British Prime Minister asked for was consistency and sort of less surprises.

00:07We both had difficult times over the last few years from the UK side, obviously change of

00:13prime ministers, I mean kind of four or five in just a quite brief period of time, all very

00:18different ideas about China. We've gone from the golden age 2015 to, you know, kind of the end of

00:25that. The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that was formally over I think in 2023. So this is really

00:31kind of more about pragmatic engagement and I guess what brings the sides together is, first of

00:36all, both countries, the economies are going through some challenges and it's going to be

00:41important for them working out what they mean to each other. But as your report just alluded to,

00:46environment, AI, these are common issues which we broadly agree on. So that gives us a basis to talk

00:52even if there are areas where we of course often disagree. Well what do these two countries mean

00:57to each other? I mean what would an improved China-UK relationship look like? I think for the

01:05UK it's really that we don't have a massive amount of investment from China. I think that's the first

01:10issue and for the UK into China we don't have a free trade agreement. Obviously we don't really

01:16have a framework for engaging with the 400, 500 million middle class city living. Maybe they would

01:22use British services, finance, things like this. We've got limited avenues into the Chinese services

01:29economy and I think that's obviously what, you know, companies in Britain, some of them well

01:34established in China like HSBC, others with less of a track record there really want to try and

01:40exploit and kind of build up. In terms of trade, China is now our biggest, you know, one of our

01:46biggest trading partners. I think it's fourth or fifth largest. However it's still not a massive

01:50relationship and, you know, there are many things where British exporters want to send

01:54their technology, their goods to China and finally China is really a technology superpower now. I mean

01:59its universities are doing really well, it's creating a lot of new innovative research, having

02:04a better relationship where we can participate in that, we can co-research. This is all, you know,

02:10very practical, very things that should be happening. The UK centre-right newspapers

02:16are this morning briefing on what they described as the dangers of getting into bed with China

02:22for the new Labour government. This is, they would say, a high risk and controversial strategy for

02:29Keir Starmer, is it? I mean, I think that Britain knows China well, we've got a long history with

02:38each other, we are a very risk-aware country, so I think we have relations with many different

02:45partners we can deal with that diversity and we have a lot of knowledge about China and China has

02:50a lot of knowledge about us. There are 200,000 Chinese students at British universities, I mean,

02:55we have an understanding. I think we're clear-sighted, we know what we want and this

03:01government, it knows its priority is economics, it knows its priority is trying to do something about

03:07Britain's productivity issues. The world's second biggest economy, China, must play a role in that.

03:13Either we say, yes, we want China to play a role or we say, no, we'll be able to deal with our

03:19economic problems ourselves. Either way, you have to make a decision. This government has made a

03:24pragmatic decision. I don't think it's naive, I think it's the only decision really that makes

03:29sense and I hope that it is able to develop a rational, consistent approach to China which

03:34balances problems with opportunities.

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