{"id":725558,"date":"2026-01-28T03:54:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T03:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/725558\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T03:54:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T03:54:18","slug":"5-china-experts-on-how-keir-starmer-should-play-his-china-trip-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/725558\/","title":{"rendered":"5 China experts on how Keir Starmer should play his China trip \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Britain should \u201clisten to the Chinese leadership and try and understand more about how [Chinese President] Xi Jinping and other senior communist leaders see the world, how they see China,\u201d the former Financial Times South China correspondent says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe U.K.\u2019s ability to influence China directly is quite limited, but it\u2019s really important that we understand what they\u2019re trying to do in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Starmer should be clear about the U.K.\u2019s red lines on espionage, interference in British society, and the harassment of people living in this country, Bland says.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"663\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/10025414-1024x663.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7840062\"  \/>Vince Cable, who visited China three times as U.K. business secretary between 2010 and 2015, says Starmer must not give Chinese President Xi Jinping public lectures. | Andy Rain\/EPA<\/p>\n<p><strong>Treat trade cautiously \u2014 Charles Parton, <strong>former diplomat<\/strong><\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Chinese are adept at the propaganda of these visits, and ensuring that everything seems wonderful,\u201d Charles Parton, an ex-diplomat who was First Counsellor to the EU Delegation in Beijing between 2011 and 2016, warns. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s an awful lot of strange counting going on of [investment] deals that have already been signed, deals that are on the cards to be signed [and] deals that are glimmers in the eye and almost certainly won\u2019t be signed,\u201d Parton, now an adviser to the Council on Geostrategy think tank, says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrade is highly fungible. It\u2019s not political,\u201d Parton, who is also a senior associate at the Royal United Services Institute, adds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Britain should \u201clisten to the Chinese leadership and try and understand more about how [Chinese President] Xi Jinping&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[521,748,1193,1395,1442,6215,23522,32,393,2002,805,3055,4884,1195,3749,4582,1302,1197,807,2452,1144,48,712,811,1199,6647,53,1201,6862,16,15,49,216104,1764,1202,1773],"class_list":{"0":"post-725558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-asia","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-british-politics","12":"tag-china","13":"tag-competition","14":"tag-cooperation","15":"tag-david-cameron","16":"tag-donald-trump","17":"tag-england","18":"tag-espionage","19":"tag-foreign-policy","20":"tag-global-economy","21":"tag-great-britain","22":"tag-growth","23":"tag-hong-kong","24":"tag-human-rights","25":"tag-innovation","26":"tag-investment","27":"tag-keir-starmer","28":"tag-media","29":"tag-northern-ireland","30":"tag-rights","31":"tag-scotland","32":"tag-security","33":"tag-services","34":"tag-stability","35":"tag-technology","36":"tag-trade","37":"tag-trade-agreements","38":"tag-uk","39":"tag-united-kingdom","40":"tag-united-states","41":"tag-vince-cable","42":"tag-wales","43":"tag-westminster-bubble","44":"tag-xi-jinping"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}