BEIJING — Britain on Thursday opened the door to an inward visit by Xi Jinping after the Chinese president hailed a thawing of relations between the two nations.
Downing Street repeatedly declined to rule out the prospect of welcoming Xi in future after saying that Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s current visit to China would not be a “one-and-done summit.”
Asked about the prospect of an inward visit — which would be the first for 11 years — Starmer’s official spokesperson told reporters: “I think the prime minister has been clear that a reset relationship with China, that it’s no longer in an ice age, is beneficial to British people and British business.
“I’m not going to get ahead of future engagements. We’ll set those out in the normal way.”
Xi paid a full state visit to the U.K. in 2015 and visited a traditional pub with then-Prime Minister David Cameron, during what is now seen as a “golden era” of British-Chinese relations. Critics of China’s stance on human rights and espionage see the trip as one of the worst foreign policy misjudgments of the Cameron era.
Kemi Badenoch, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, said: “We should not roll out the red carpet for a state that conducts daily espionage in our country, flouts international trading rules and aids Putin in his senseless war on Ukraine. We need a dialogue with China, we do not need to kowtow to them.”
Any state visit invitation would be in the name of King Charles III and be issued by Buckingham Palace. There is no suggestion that a full state visit is being considered at present.
Xi did not leave mainland China for more than two years during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Starmer and Xi met Thursday in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People and the two nations agreed to look at the “feasibility” of a partnership in the services sector.
Britain said it had signed an agreement for China to waive visa rules for British citizens visiting for less than 30 days for business or tourism, bringing the U.K. into line with nations including France, Germany, Italy, Australia and Japan.
The two nations also promised to co-operate on conformity assessments, exports, sports, tackling organized crime, vocational training and food safety, though further details were not immediately available. Starmer also hailed “really good progress” on lowering Chinese whisky tariffs.
One official familiar with the talks stressed that Starmer had also raised more difficult issues including the ongoing detention of British-Hong Kong democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai, and China’s position on the war in Ukraine — but declined to be drawn on the specifics of the pair’s conversation.
The talks steered clear of more difficult topics such as wind farm technology, where critics fear co-operation would leave Britain vulnerable to Chinese influence.
Asked if Starmer had come back empty handed, his spokesperson said: “I don’t accept that at all. I think this is a historic trip where you’ve seen for the first time in eight years a PM set foot on Chinese soil, have a meeting at the highest level with the president of the second largest economy in the world.
“You should also note that this isn’t a question of a one-and-done summit with China. It is a resetting of a relationship that has been on ice for eight years.”