MPs Say UK Has No Real Strategy on China
A Commons committee has accused the government of improvising on China. Its report warns that Britain could end up with a strategy written in Washington or Beijing.
A policy that pleases neither side
The business, innovation, science and trade committee looked at relations with Beijing since Labour took office in 2024. It concluded that the lack of a coherent approach "combined the worst of both worlds".
In its view, the government has delivered no commercial gains for British firms and has not got a grip on a growing risk that nobody has measured.
The committee chair, Labour MP Liam Byrne, put it bluntly: businesses cannot plan ahead while ministers keep making policy up as they go.
Why the report sees gains and dangers
The MPs acknowledged the gains from trade with Beijing. British companies have profitable operations in China and are ambitious to grow there, and the report names electric vehicles as a case where consumers benefit from low-cost imports.
China's exports have boomed since 2018, which now feeds fears of deindustrialisation alongside long-standing concerns about cyber espionage and national security.
Keir Starmer made the first official visit to China since Theresa May in 2018, travelling in January. The trip was billed as an effort to end a diplomatic ice age.
Decisions the committee calls reactive
The report cites two cases. One is the March decision to block the Chinese firm Ming Yang from building a £1.5bn wind plant in Scotland, after years of talks, on unspecified security grounds. The other is the emergency takeover of British Steel from its Chinese owners.
Both were marked, it said, by reactivity, inconsistency and opacity.
What the MPs propose
The committee wants new rules for investment and trade. Industries that are off-limits to Chinese money would go into a "red zone". Sectors where trade should be encouraged would sit in a "green zone".
It also says work on a new strategy should run alongside official preparations for trade remedies against unfair competition. That could include tariffs on EVs, which Downing Street has not ruled out.
The European pressure
Byrne links the issue to Europe, which he says is moving quickly on trade protections. He warns that new EU laws could leave Britain outside the bloc's trade walls and cut it off from its largest market.
The EU has already put tariffs on Chinese EVs and capped hybrid imports. It is also weighing a Franco-German proposal for a "kill switch" against imports if China uses trade as a weapon.
The UK is already under pressure to align on EV tariffs. Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds has said he will decide in the best interests of the UK.
Our take
The report turns a vague complaint into a testable demand: publish the rules before the next deal lands on a minister's desk. Whether the red and green zones can be drawn without hurting British exporters is the hard part. The EU tariff choice is the first real test, because it forces a position on aligning with Brussels.
Source: the Guardian