David Lammy must “engage with China as it really is under the leadership of Xi Jinping” and raise human rights concerns during his trip to the country, UK MPs who have been sanctioned by Beijing have said.
The foreign secretary is expected to hold high-level meetings in China this week. The visit is part of an effort by the Labor Party to improve relations with China after they deteriorated under successive Conservative governments. Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, plans to travel to the country next year and restart high-level economic dialogue.
The rapprochement is controversial because of security and human rights concerns about China, including its treatment of the Uyghur Muslim minority in Xinjiang and repression of democratic freedoms in Hong Kong.
In a letter to Lammy on Tuesday, the group of MPs wrote that “Beijing is testing the UK's resolve.” [and] seeking to establish new parameters of participation.”
Beijing imposed sanctions on the group, which includes Labor peer Helena Kennedy, in 2021 for criticizing its human rights record in Xinjiang.
In their letter, the MPs urge Lammy to raise the case of political prisoners in Hong Kong, including British citizen Jimmy Lai, and the “appalling treatment” of the Uyghur community.
They call on the Foreign Secretary to express “deep concern” about China’s “unilateral alteration of the status quo” in Taiwan. The Chinese military held military exercises in Taiwan on Monday in what it called a “stern warning” against those seeking “independence” for the self-governing island.
The Guardian reported last week that the Foreign Office had asked for the visit to the UK parliament of Tsai Ing-wen, the former Taiwanese president, to be delayed so as not to anger China ahead of Lammy's trip. Tsai is traveling to Prague and Brussels on her first international tour since leaving office.
The letter warns that “the projected $10 trillion impact of a conflict over Taiwan on the world economy is unsupportable and would be catastrophic for China's standing in the world.” Taiwan, which has never been governed by the Chinese Republic, has increasingly opposed Beijing's sovereignty claims over it. It is feared that China will eventually try to annex the island by force.
Signatories to the letter include former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, former security minister Tom Tugendhat and former health minister Neil O'Brien.
“We must engage with China as it really is under Xi Jinping's leadership, not as we all expected it to be after its accession to the World Trade Organization,” they wrote. “Our own political environment means that the temptation to prioritize short-term economic advantages over the UK's resilience and values is strong, but will only disadvantage the UK in the long term.”
The letter urges Lammy to stress that the UK's concerns are not a product of alignment with US foreign policy but “the result of non-negotiable values that are at the heart of the UK's national interest”.
The last foreign secretary to visit China was James Cleverly in August 2023. Earlier this year, the UK and US governments accused Chinese state-backed hackers of a years-long cyberattack against politicians, journalists and companies.
In its manifesto, the Labor Party committed to a Whitehall audit of the relationship between the UK and China. In the past, the Labor Party has also pledged to take steps to recognize China's treatment of its Uyghur minority as genocide.
Girl Kennedy and Duncan Smith are UK co-chairs of the Interparliamentary Alliance on China, which is strongly critical of Beijing.
An FCDO spokesperson said: “This Government will take a coherent, strategic and long-term approach to managing the UK’s relations with China, rooted in UK and global interests. We will cooperate where we can, compete where necessary, and challenge where necessary.
“The right thing to do is for us to engage pragmatically with China where there are clear UK and world interests. That includes areas where we agree and, more importantly, where we disagree, as the Foreign Secretary did during his meeting with Wang Yi at ASEAN.
“The trip of the Secretary of Foreign Affairs will be confirmed in the ordinary way.”
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