00:00Oh, I'm very nervous. I'm very, very nervous about the extent to which China has effectively
00:12spied on us, stolen many of our industrial secrets. I'm worried about the extent to which
00:19they've infiltrated using money, British universities. We must be cautious about the
00:25relationship. But I think what the Starmer trip shows you is that his mindset is where
00:30we were ten years ago. Ten years ago, David Cameron thought China was the great future
00:34for this country. Everything's changed in that last decade. Keir Starmer hasn't.
00:39Well, Liberal Democrats believe we do need to talk to China, absolutely. But we also need
00:45to do that from a position of strength, which is where the current Labour government is going
00:49wrong. If we had a new trading relationship with Europe, a customs union as the Liberal
00:54Democrats have argued, we'd be able to talk to China about improving our economic relations,
00:59but also to call China out for its human rights abuses, what it does to Hong Kongers, to the
01:06detention, illegal detention of Jimmy Lai. These are the sorts of issues that we should
01:10be raising. But I'm afraid this government's so weak because it hasn't got a European deal.
01:16The issue with this visit is it comes after 18 months of sustained hostile acts against
01:21our country. Cyber attacks, putting a spy at the heart of our parliament, the torture and
01:27imprisonment of Jimmy Lai, British national. And so what message that sends is it doesn't
01:31matter what you do to our country, we will reward you with a propaganda visit to Beijing.
01:35So actually, yes, it is dangerous because it signals the end of deterrence and we should
01:40be really concerned about that.
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