UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper plans fresh visit to China

Britain’s chief foreign minister plans to make a standalone visit to China, a move designed to further boost economic and diplomatic engagement with Beijing in the wake of an imminent trip by Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Yvette Cooper said she “certainly will” travel to the country after Starmer moved her to the role of foreign secretary in September. She declined to comment on a possible date or whether it would be this year.

Cooper’s aim will be unsurprising to many, given Cabinet ministers including Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Cooper’s predecessor David Lammy and the former Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds all visited China last year in a drumbeat that will culminate in Starmer’s visit, widely expected around the end of January.

However, they indicate that Britain’s ruling Labour Party has no intention of cooling a courtship that has generated significant opposition — including from some of its own MPs — due to concerns over China’s human rights record and espionage activity.

Cooper herself said Britain takes security issues around China “immensely seriously,” adding: “That involves transnational repression, it involves the espionage threats and challenges that we face.”

Speaking to POLITICO ahead of a visit Thursday to the Arctic, where China is taking an increasing strategic interest, Cooper added: “There are also some wider economic security issues around, for example, the control of critical minerals around the world, and some of those issues. 

“So we’re very conscious of the broad range of China threats that are posed alongside what we also know is China’s role as being our third-largest trading partner, and so the complexity of the relationship with China and the work that needs to done.”

Security taken ‘very seriously’

Labour officials have repeatedly emphasised their desire to engage directly with the world’s second-largest economy, including frank dialogue on areas where they disagree. Starmer said in December that he rejected a “binary choice” between having a golden age or freezing China out.

However, the timing is acutely sensitive for the Labour government, which is likely to approve plans for a new Chinese “mega-embassy” in London in the coming days. The site near Tower Bridge is very close to telecommunications cables that run to the capital’s financial district.

Cooper declined to answer directly whether she had assured U.S. counterparts about the embassy plans, after a Trump administration official told the Telegraph newspaper the White House was “deeply concerned” by them.

Keir Starmer said in December that he rejected a “binary choice” between having a golden age or freezing China out. | Pool Photo by Ludovic Marin via EPA

The foreign secretary said: “The Home Office, the foreign office, also the security agencies take all of those security issues very seriously, and we also brief our allies on security issues as well.”

However, Cooper appeared to defend the prospect of approving the plans — which have run parallel to Britain’s aim to rebuild its own embassy in Beijing.  “All countries have embassies,” she said. “We have embassies all around the world, including in Beijing.”

She added: “Of course, security is an important part of the considerations around all embassies. So we need to have those diplomatic relationships, those communications. We also have to make sure that security is taken very seriously. The U.K. and the U.S. have a particularly close security partnership. So we do share a lot of information intelligence, and we have that deep-rooted discussion.”

Asked if she plans to make her own visit to China, Cooper responded: “I certainly will do so.”