Starmer’s football gift to Xi kicks off bid to become premier league trading partner

Xi Jinping and Keir Starmer bonded over football in their bilateral meeting today. The Chinese president told the prime minister that he took an interest in four Premier League teams: Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal and Crystal Palace. He even said he understood that the Labour leader was “something of a professional” at the game himself. Starmer reciprocated by giving Xi the ball from last weekend’s nail-biting match between Arsenal and Manchester United, signed by the players.

The two men had so much to talk about that their “warm and constructive” meeting overran by 45 minutes, before they sat down to lunch in the ornate golden room in the Great Hall of the People. Downing Street is clear that the first visit to China by a British prime minister in eight years should not be seen as the end of the process but the beginning of a new relationship. It is “not one and done”, a spokesman said.

No 10 even suggested that it is open to Xi visiting the UK, although this would surely be impossible if the Chinese sanctions on British MPs, including former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, remain in place. The king may also have reservations. When Xi last visited Britain, in 2015, the then Prince Charles made a point of avoiding the state banquet. He is a longstanding supporter of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader who, in the past at least, he viewed as being oppressed by the Chinese.

The prime minister’s message is that he wants UK relations with China to tread a path between the “golden age” and the “ice age”. The truth is he has little choice. The geopolitical kaleidoscope has been turned again, the US is no longer a reliable ally and the UK cannot afford to treat the world’s second-largest economy as a pariah. China is already the UK’s third biggest trading partner, supporting 370,000 British jobs, and its population of 1.4 billion make it a huge market into which to expand.

The potential benefits are huge. Pascal Soriot, the AstraZeneca CEO, used a meeting of the UK-China Business Council to announce a 100bn yuan (£10.4bn) investment in China by 2030. And as part of a series of agreements around greater cooperation, including on trade and services, there will be visa-free travel for Britons visiting China for less than 30 days. Peter Kyle, the business secretary, described this week’s visit as a “springboard into the future”, with more action to come.

Downing Street insists the government is not ignoring concerns around national security and human rights. In his meeting with Xi, Starmer raised in a “respectful” way the treatment of the British businessman Jimmy Lai and the fate of the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, as well as the sanctioning of British parliamentarians.

Speaking to business delegates, the prime minister also pledged to “pursue common goals while reserving differences”. But he said it was important to have a rounded picture if the UK is to capitalise on the economic benefits of a trading relationship with China.

“President Xi tells the story of blind men being presented with an elephant,” he said. “One touches the leg and thinks it’s a pillow, another feels the belly and thinks it’s a wall.” The broader and deeper engagement the UK and China had embarked on was, he explained, “our way of seeing the whole elephant and therefore building a more sophisticated relationship fit for these times”.

Photograph by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street