UK PM says government will co-operate and present "strong challenge" to China | UK Government

Article translated and adapted from English, Published by the US headquarters of The Epoch Times.

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Wednesday that the government would replace cooperation with “strong resistance” when dealing with China.

Sir Keir made the comments during his first foreign trip as Prime Minister to attend NATO's 75th anniversary summit in Washington.

Sir Keir told reporters that the Labor government's approach would be “cooperation where it is needed”, noting that “this is on issues like climate change, for example”.

“But I challenge where necessary, equally, and strongly,” he added.

“One of the first things we will do is conduct an audit of our report on relations with China, relations between the UK and China. We will begin this audit and take appropriate action,” the Prime Minister said.

Before entering Number 10, Labor pledged to conduct a thorough audit of the UK's relationship with China within the first 100 days of government to “improve the UK's ability to understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities that China represents”. A long-term and strategic approach to managing relations between the two countries.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who held the same role in the shadow cabinet before Labor won the July 5 general election, said it was led by the “three Cs”. Health.

Labor said it would take a “progressive realist” approach on China, without making specific promises. It is not clear if or how this deviates from Rishi Sunak's “robust pragmatist” approach.

Both major parties expressed their desire for closer ties with allies to counter the challenges and threats posed by the Chinese regime. Labor also said it was “fully committed” to AUKUS, the trilateral Indo-Pacific security pact with Australia and the US created under the Conservatives.

Over the past 14 years, the Conservative Party has presided over the so-called golden age of Sino-British relations and the rapid decline of the relationship in recent years.

The party reversed its earlier decision to allow China's Huawei onto the UK's 5G network, tightened laws on espionage and influence campaigns, supply chain and corporate takeovers and ended government funding for Confucius Institutes. Acted too little and too late on national security and human rights sanctions.

During the election campaign, the Conservative Party intensified its rhetoric about China, calling its communist regime an “axis of totalitarian states and hostile actors” and promising to include it in an advanced layer of the long-awaited foreign influence registration program. This means that agents of the Chinese regime must declare all their activities in the UK.

PA Media contributed to this story.