The UK’s new business secretary, Peter Kyle, will fly to Beijing this week as part of Keir Starmer’s continuing efforts to revitalise the UK’s trade relationship with China and deliver growth to the British economy.
The former science and technology secretary, who was promoted in Friday’s government reshuffle, is expected to land in China on Wednesday, picking up the schedule of his predecessor, Jonathan Reynolds, who is now chief whip.
Kyle will first travel to Washington as part of the preparations for Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK and from there is expected to go to Beijing for a meeting with the Chinese minister of commerce, Wang Wentao, at the first meeting of the UK China joint economic and trade commission (Jetco) for seven years.
Jetco summits were paused by Boris Johnson in response to Beijing’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019, with Covid stalling dialogue in subsequent years.
Kyle is the latest in a long line of senior cabinet ministers to visit China since Labour came to power last year, including the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, in January and the new deputy prime minister, David Lammy, last October, who visited in his previous role as foreign secretary.
However, because of the short notice and the decision to fly to Washington on Sunday, Kyle is expected to miss out on a visit to an international trade conference in the eastern city of Xiamen, pencilled in by Reynolds’ team.
About 200 British businesses will be represented at the China International Fair for Investment & Trade (Cifit) in a delegation led by James Sassoon, former businessman and adviser to David Cameron.
A report published by the British Chamber of Commerce in China in May said that high-level dialogues such as Jetco were “much needed” forums for spurring bilateral trade and investment.
“We had a period of seven or eight years with very little traction, where I think the UK government didn’t really have a clear view on how to approach the relationship with China. There was a lot of stopping and starting and obviously all the changes in leadership didn’t help,” said Beijing based Tom Simpson, managing director, China, at the China Britain Business Council, which is participating in Cifit.
“But since the general election last year, there’s been steady improvement in the engagement we are seeing, in the quality of engagement as well as the parts of the relationship that often don’t get picked up on, are now being restored,” Simpson said.
While the UK is hoping the dialogue will boost trade with China and provide Starmer with much-needed economic growth, some say the campaign has delivered little so far.
“By my count, this will be the ninth government representative to go to China since Labour were elected,” said Sam Goodman, senior policy director at the Chinese Strategic Risk thinktank.
“People in government are trying to characterise this as a reset, but I query how much the UK has got out of this reset so far. When Rachel Reeves went in January she got commitments of £600m in investment from the Chinese, substantially less than the £2bn she got from Bahrain, a much smaller country, a few months later,” he said.
China is the UK’s fifth largest export market worth around £41bn in goods and services. “You cannot address economic growth without addressing China. This is a case of the British government doing the right thing in the national interest, creating jobs in Britain,” said a source close to the UK delegation.
In the past year, there has been surging interest in China in British sporting ventures, from football to motor racing to snooker. In October, the Premier League opened its first office in Beijing, while sailing company Clipper Ventures has announced plans to open its first training base in the port city of Qingdao.
In education, there are now as many Chinese-owned schools in the UK as there are British school brands in China, according to forthcoming research from Venture Education, a Beijing-based education consultancy.
