UK-China latest: Minister says ‘bonkers’ not to deal with Beijing after Trump blasts Starmer’s Xi meeting

Political reporter Athena Stavrou reports:

The shadow national security minister has said she wouldn’t have gone to China without assurance “Jimmy Lai was coming home with me”.

Sir Keir has faced calls to raise the jailing of Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai on his visit to China this week.

Alicia Kearns, Conservative MP for Rutland and Stamford, said the prime minister’s visit to China telling Beijing the visit will give them “the propaganda coup that you are looking for, without any meaningful returns for our national security”.

When asked what would have constituted a meaningful return, Ms Kearns told Times Radio: “I would have put a precondition that I was not going to go if I was prime minister, unless Jimmy Lai was coming home with me.”

Sir Keir Starmer toured Shanghai’s Yuyuan Gardens and talked to Chinese students about Larry the Downing Street cat as he began the second leg of his visit to China.

About two hours after arriving in Shanghai, Sir Keir visited a shopping district in Yuyuan Gardens, an area in the old part of the city decorated with hundreds of red lanterns for the upcoming Chinese New Year.

The prime minister stopped to admire a display of large multicoloured horse lanterns and visited a shop selling butterfly biscuits, a local specialty. He then went to Huxinting Teahouse, an ornate pavilion on stilts rising over a lake.

Inside, Sir Keir met with Chinese design students who had made British-themed lanterns, including a red double-decker bus, Battersea Power Station and a cat with a Union flag bow tie.

Sir Keir told the students about Larry, who he said was very popular with world leaders visiting Downing Street.

The design students were from Shanghai International College of Fashion and Innovation, a joint institute between Shanghai’s Donghua University and Edinburgh University.

Previous visitors to the Huxingting Tea House include Queen Elizabeth II and Jackie Chan.

British trade department minister Chris Bryant said Trump was “wrong” to say the UK entering a relationship with China was doing was dangerous.

“Of course, we enter into our relationship with China with our eyes wide open,” he told the BBC on Friday.

Around the time of Trump’s comments, Sir Keir Starmer told a meeting of the UK-China Business Forum in the Chinese capital that his “very warm” meetings with Xi had provided “real progress”.

Starmer hailed deals on visa-free travel and lower whisky tariffs as “really important access, symbolic of what we’re doing with the relationship”.

“That is the way that we build the mutual trust and respect that is so important,” Sir Keir said.

Donald Trump has warned it would be “dangerous” for the UK to do business with China.

Asked by reporters early on Friday about the UK’s efforts to strengthen economic ties with China, the US President expressed disapproval.

“Well, it’s very dangerous for them to do that, and it’s even more dangerous, I think, for Canada to get into business with China,” he said.

It would be “absolutely bonkers” for the UK not to engage with China, a minister has said, after Donald Trump expressed disapproval of Sir Keir Starmer’s trip to the country.

Asked by Sky News about the US president’s suggestion overnight it would be “dangerous” for the UK to do business with China, trade minister Sir Chris Bryant said: “Well, he also said that President Xi (Jinping) is a friend of his and that he’s going to visit him in April.”

Sir Chris added: “I agree that you of course you have to go into your relationship with China with your eyes wide open.

“You have to challenge China on the issues where we disagree with them and but you have to face the fact that China is a major power in the world.

“It’s the second largest economy in the world, and it’s our fourth largest export market.

“So it would be absolutely bonkers to the UK not to engage with China.”

Political correspondent Athena Stavrou reports:

A government minister has been unable to rule out a future visit to the UK by Xi Jinping.

Trade minister Sir Chris Bryant was unable to give his own opinion on a potential visit on Friday, after No 10 left the door open to a future visit from the Chinese President.

When asked if Mr Xi would be welcome to the UK, Mr Bryant said: “The visit of a president is normally a matter for the palace as well as for the for the government.

“So I don’t want to get ahead of myself – It’s not for me to be issuing invitation.”

When asked whether a visit would be appropriate, given China has sanctioned British MPs, Mr Bryant said: “Of course we take all those issues that you just raised extremely seriously and I’m sure that they would factor into any discussions.”

Sir Keir Starmer has touched down in Shanghai for the next leg of his trip to China.

The prime minister met Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday as he made the case for a “more sophisticated” relationship between the UK and China.

He also met business leaders and Chinese ministers in Beijing as he continues his push to bolster economic ties with the country, including Chinese Health Minister Ma Xiaowei and the Bank of China chairman Ge Haijiao.

Sir Keir’s visit to Shanghai, a massive financial hub and China’s biggest city, will cap a trip during which the prime minister’s political opponents accused him of “kowtowing” to Mr Xi.

Political correspondent Athena Stavrou reports:

Donald Trump’s warning to Sir Keir Starmer was rebuked by trade minister Sir Chris Bryant on Friday, who said his remarks on the UK’s trade prospects were “wrong”.

Hours after the prime minister met Chinese president Xi Jinping in Beijing, US president Donald Trump expressed his disapproval of the UK’s efforts to do business with China, saying it is “dangerous”.

Asked by BBC Breakfast if the US president was wrong in his remarks, trade minister Sir Chris Bryant said: “Yes, he is wrong, and I say this precisely because, apart from anything else, he himself said in his own statement that he is a friend with President Xi, and as I understand it, President Trump is going to China himself in April.”