Yvette Cooper has been accused of lacking the backbone to confront China over its human rights record, support for Russia and the imprisonment of British citizen Jimmy Lai — as the Foreign Secretary arrived in Beijing for Labour’s latest diplomatic push to warm relations with the world’s second-largest economy.
Cooper’s visit, her first to China as Foreign Secretary, follows Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s own trip to Beijing in January and a three-day visit by Chancellor Rachel Reeves last year — a pattern of engagement that critics have repeatedly condemned given China’s backing for Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, its treatment of the Uighur population and its jailing of pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai, a British citizen currently imprisoned in Hong Kong.
Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel did not hold back in her assessment of the visit. “As if Keir Starmer’s surrender tour earlier this year wasn’t enough, his Foreign Secretary is now in Beijing cosying up to the CCP too,” the senior Tory MP said. She also drew a direct line between the visit and the government’s current domestic difficulties. “This is little more than a distraction from the scandal engulfing the Government — which involves Mandelson’s links to China as well as to a convicted paedophile — and the civil war raging at the top of the Labour Party. Cooper should be pushing for the release of Jimmy Lai. But Labour lack the backbone to stand up to China.”
Cooper rejected the framing, describing what she called “foreign policy cancel culture” — a pushback against those who argue Britain should disengage from China entirely. “It’s only by having these talks and discussions that actually we can make the UK stronger back at home,” she told reporters. “We need that principled diplomacy and engagement with major powers like China.”
When asked whether she had raised the case of Jimmy Lai, Cooper said “of course” she had done so, but declined to elaborate on whether any progress had been made towards his release following her meetings with Chinese Vice-President Han Zheng and Foreign Minister Wang Yi. On China’s relationship with Russia, she acknowledged it remained an area of “disagreement” between London and Beijing but said she had discussed the importance of applying pressure on Moscow and bringing it to peace negotiations. Asked directly whether President Xi Jinping’s government should be doing more to end the war, she said only that “it’s important we have those frank and constructive discussions.”
The delegation’s approach to cybersecurity revealed the ongoing tensions underpinning the diplomatic charm offensive — Foreign Office officials are travelling throughout the visit with “burner” phones, a precaution that reflects continued concern about Chinese espionage even as ministers publicly champion closer ties.
Chinese Vice-President Han Zheng welcomed Cooper warmly, declaring that Sir Keir’s visit earlier this year had “opened a new chapter for bilateral ties” and called on both countries to “intensify interactions and strengthen dialogue and co-operation for the sake of world peace and stability.”
Cooper later visited the Forbidden City before meeting Wang Yi for further talks. She is due to travel to Shenzhen on Wednesday to discuss trade links and the future of artificial intelligence, before flying to Delhi on Thursday to meet her Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
