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Keir Starmer said his mission to Beijing would bring benefits for people in the UK as he prepared to begin the first prime ministerial visit to China in eight years. The UK prime minister will touch down in China on Wednesday along with a delegation of almost 60 representatives of British businesses and cultural institutions as he continues his efforts to build bridges with Beijing. Speaking to reporters on the flight to Beijing, he said: ‘The evidence there are opportunities is the fact that we’ve got so many CEOs with us on this flight, that we’ve got 60 coming out to explore those opportunities.’ He added that this ‘reflects back at home in terms of the benefit that it brings back to the UK’. Starmer is the first British prime minister to visit China since Theresa May in 2018. The intervening years saw a cooling of relations with China under the Conservatives, before Labour began re-engaging with a series of ministerial visits capped with Starmer’s trip. Speaking to reporters, the prime minister reiterated that he wanted ‘a comprehensive and consistent approach to China’, rather than veering ‘from golden age to ice age’ as under the previous government. In the UK, he has come under pressure to raise a series of human rights issues with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior officials, including the imprisonment of British national and Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai and the treatment of the uighur minority. But ahead of his meetings with the Chinese leadership, Starmer declined to be drawn on what he would seek to raise. He said: ‘In the past, on all the trips I’ve done, I’ve always raised issues that need to be raised, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself on the specifics until I’ve had the opportunity.’ Starmer added: ‘Part of the reason for engaging with China is so that issues where we disagree can be discussed, and the issues where we agree can be progressed, and so that’s the approach.’ By Christopher McKeon, Press Association Political Correspondent Press Association: News source: PA Copyright 2026 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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