Sunak, the first British prime minister to meet the Chinese president in person in five years, sought to redefine the UK’s approach to China. He is moving away from the more overtly hostile approach taken by his predecessor, Liz Truss, and acknowledging the need to engage with Beijing. Downing Street said Mr Sunak would be “clean” about Britain’s relations with China, but throughout his time as UK chancellor he had seen foreign policy through a primarily economic lens. Sunak and Xi will meet for a one-on-one bilateral meeting on Wednesday afternoon, the first in person since February 2018, with then-prime minister Theresa May. The meeting was requested by Downing Street. “It’s important to work with people to try to address some of these common challenges,” Sunak said. Number 10 said the prime minister would be “clear about the need for China and the UK to establish a frank and constructive relationship”. US President Joe Biden met Xi on Monday and agreed to “maintain communication” on a range of issues as Western leaders seek to pull China out of its increasingly close partnership with Russia. After a long freeze in personal diplomacy over China’s zero-Covid policy, Xi began meetings with European leaders this month for the first time since the start of the pandemic, hosting Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, in Beijing and meeting Emmanuel Macron, the president of France. , at the G20. Downing Street said: “The challenges China poses are systemic, they are long-term and they are a fundamentally different country with fundamentally different values to our own.” He added that Sunak will raise China’s human rights record during the meeting. The meeting with Xi drew mixed reactions from conservative MPs. Alicia Kearns, chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, said: “It is important that they come together to prevent miscalculations. We cannot simply cut off China, we must work to create the space for dialogue, challenge and cooperation.” But Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former cabinet minister and a notable critic of Beijing, said he was “dismayed” by Sunak’s stance on China and insisted it was a “threat” to the UK. “I’m worried that the current prime minister, when he meets Xi Jinping, will be perceived as weak because now we seem to be appeasing China, which is a disaster as it was in the 1930s and will be now,” he said. As chancellor, Sunak sought to deepen economic ties between the two countries by proposing the relaunch of the UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue, an annual trade and investment summit last held in 2019. The event was later cancelled. Speaking at the summit, Sunak said China still “undoubtedly” poses a “systemic challenge” to UK values and interests, adding that it “undoubtedly poses the biggest state threat to our economic security”. Sunak said he still wanted to have a working relationship with China, describing it as an “undeniable fact of the world economy”. He added: “We won’t be able to solve common global challenges like climate change or public health, or indeed deal with Russia and Ukraine, without having a dialogue with them.” The prime minister said his position is “largely aligned with our allies”, noting recent national security strategies by the US and Australia have adopted similar rhetoric. Recommended He did not deny that the UK could arm Taiwan if it faced aggression from China in the future, saying: “We are looking at all these things as part of the renewal of the comprehensive review.” On Taiwan, he added: “There should be no unilateral regime change and there should be a peaceful resolution to this situation. We are ready to support Taiwan as we do in countering Chinese aggression.” Sunak will also have his first official meeting with Biden on Wednesday, as well as Anthony Albanese, Australia’s prime minister. Additional reporting by Yuan Yang in London
