Article translated and adapted from English, Published by the US headquarters of the Epoch Times.
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Wednesday the government would alternate between cooperation and “strong defiance” when dealing with China.
Sir Keir made the comments during his first overseas trip as prime minister to attend NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington.
Sir Keir told reporters the Labour Government’s approach would be “cooperation where necessary”, adding that “this is, for example, on issues like climate change”.
“But I equally challenge where necessary and at the same time challenge strongly,” he added.
“One of the first things we will do is to carry out the audit that we set out in our manifesto of the relationship with China, the relationship between the UK and China. We will undertake this audit and take appropriate steps”, the Prime Minister said.
Before entering Number 10, the Labour Party promised to launch a full audit of the UK’s relationship with China within the first 100 days of government in order to “improve the UK’s ability to understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by China”, in order to provide a long-term and strategic approach to managing the relationship between the two countries.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who held the same role in the shadow cabinet before the Labour Party won the general election on 5 July, said he is guided by the “three Cs”: competition in some areas, challenge in others and cooperation on issues such as climate and health.
The Labour Party said it would take a “progressive realism” approach, without making specific promises on China. It is unclear whether it will deviate from Rishi Sunak’s “robust pragmatism” approach.
Both major parties said they would seek closer ties with allies to confront the challenges and threats posed by the Chinese regime. The Labor Party also said it was “fully committed” to AUKUS, a trilateral Indo-Pacific security agreement with Australia and the United States under the Conservatives.
Over the past 14 years, the Conservative Party has presided over the so-called golden age of Sino-British relations and in recent years relations have deteriorated sharply.
The party reversed its previous decision to allow China’s Huawei into Britain’s 5G networks, toughened laws on spying and influence operations, supply chains and company takeovers, and ended government funding for Confucius Institutes, but critics said the administration still lacked a coherent China strategy and took too little, too late action on national security and human rights restrictions.
During the election campaign, the Conservative Party stepped up its rhetoric regarding China, describing its communist regime as part of an “axis of authoritarian states and hostile actors”, and promising to include it in the advanced tier of the long-awaited Foreign Influences Registration Scheme, which would mean that agents of the Chinese regime would have to declare almost all of their activities in the United Kingdom.
PA Media contributed to this story.
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