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Rishi Sunak will extend Britain’s hand to China for the first time in almost five years, asking for closer relations on energy and the economy, in a move that risks a backlash from Conservative MPs who have had sanctions imposed upon them by Beijing.
Sunak will meet the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, at the G20 summit in Bali on Wednesday in last-minute bilateral talks announced late on Tuesday, a day after the prime minister suggested he would row back from categorising China as a “threat”, something his predecessor, Liz Truss, had vowed to do.
No 10 said Sunak hoped to establish a “a frank and constructive relationship” with Xi, but said the PM would not shy away from raising human rights concerns about the brutal treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
Sunak is understood to have been personally keen for the meeting to take place. Officials suggested it would have broad aims to find areas where the UK and China could start to make new progress, including on energy security and the climate crisis, as well as encouraging Beijing to play a more active role on Russia and Ukraine.
Sunak said on Tuesday night it was his intention to open a new dialogue. “I think it’s important that we engage with people to try and tackle some of these shared challenges. And I’m here to talk to people.”
But the move is likely to raise the hackles of the vocal group of MPs sounding alarm bells about China’s actions – many of them under Chinese sanctions – who have been pushing for the formal “threat” designation.
Among those to have had Chinese sanctions imposed upon them are Sunak’s security minister, Tom Tugendhat, science minister Nus Ghani, the former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith and the chair of the foreign affairs select committee, Alicia Kearns.
Duncan Smith said the change of approach was “drifting into appeasement” and Xi would take the rapprochement as a sign of weakness. “I am worried that the present prime minister, when he meets Xi Jinping, will be perceived as weak because it now looks like we’re drifting into appeasement with China, which is a disaster as it was in the 1930s and so it will be now,” he said.
Bob Seely, a Tory MP and member of the Inter-parliamentary Alliance on China, said: “Of course we need to talk to nations, especially those that may challenge our values and stability, but it is dangerous to normalise relations when they are not normal.
