Starmer’s China Visit: Economic Realities Behind the Bloomers They Won’t Show on TV

Growth is a Hollow Promise When the Roots Are Planted in Someone Else’s Soil

When the Prime Minister touched down in Beijing, he stumbled through state ceremonies and looked every bit the supplicant rather than the statesman, we are told this is progress. After 80 minutes with Xi Jinping, Sir Keir Starmer emerges triumphant, declaring “really good progress” on whisky tariffs and visa-free travel.

But before we toast this diplomatic breakthrough with a discounted Scotch, we ought to examine the bill.

The Exchange

Eight days before Starmer’s plane left for Beijing, his government approved China’s application for a mega-embassy in London. Twenty-two thousand square metres. The largest Chinese embassy in Europe. Situated near the Tower of London, uncomfortably close to the fibre-optic cables that carry sensitive financial data between the City and Canary Wharf.

MI5 and GCHQ issued explicit warnings that national security risks “cannot be wholly eliminated.” The Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy warned it would “create a hub for expanded intelligence-gathering and intimidation operations.” Local residents protested. Conservative MPs condemned it as surrender. China had blocked Britain’s own embassy expansion in Beijing until this approval came through.

The government signed off anyway. One week later, Starmer was in Beijing, photo-ready.

So what did Britain receive for this considerable concession? A whisky tariff cut from 10% to 5%, projected to generate £250 million over five years. In an economy measured in trillions, this is a rounding error. Visa-free travel for British tourists, which benefits holidaymakers but does nothing for Britain’s industrial base.

And the headline prize: AstraZeneca’s £15 billion investment. Starmer framed it as a British success, claiming it would “support thousands of UK jobs.” Read the announcement more carefully. The investment is in China. The new facilities are in Wuxi, Taizhou, Qingdao, and Beijing. The R&D centres are in Shanghai and Beijing. The 20,000-plus workforce being expanded is in China. AstraZeneca may be headquartered in Cambridge, but this money is building China’s pharmaceutical capacity, not Britain’s.

The Arithmetic

Britain’s trade deficit with China now stands at £42 billion, up 18% from £35.5 billion the previous year. In the 12 months to June 2025, UK exports to China fell by 10.4% while imports rose by 4.3%. We buy more, sell less, and call it partnership.

China accounts for just 0.2% of foreign direct investment in the UK. The United States, for context, accounts for a third. Yet Starmer travelled with 60 corporate executives (including the chairman of HSBC and the CEO of AstraZeneca) to secure deals that funnel British capital into Chinese infrastructure while our own industrial heartlands continue to hollow out.

The Pattern

This is not unique to Labour. It is the underlying logic of the neoliberal consensus. Growth is treated as an abstract good, independent of geography or sovereignty. British firms investing billions in a geopolitical competitor’s industrial capacity is presented as prosperity, so long as shareholders in London and New York receive their dividends.

But growth measured purely in financial flows is meaningless if it does not build domestic resilience, create secure employment, or strengthen national capacity. When a “British” pharmaceutical giant expands its manufacturing in China rather than Teesside, that is not British growth. It is the offshoring of future capability dressed up in patriotic language.

The Illusion

Starmer insists Britain can engage economically with China without compromising security. This is fantasy. Capital is leverage. When you approve a surveillance-ready embassy complex and facilitate billions in corporate investment flows, you are not balancing interests. You are demonstrating where the priorities lie.

The people of this country gain nothing from these arrangements. Not the nurse in Newcastle whose hospital trust cannot afford pay rises. Not the former steelworker in Port Talbot watching his industry dismantled while ministers celebrate trade missions. Not the young person priced out of housing while oligarchic capital (wherever it originates) inflates property markets.

The Reckoning

If Britain is serious about a meaningful China strategy, it must begin with an honest reckoning about who these deals serve. That means:

Mandatory domestic reinvestment clauses for any firm claiming state diplomatic support. If AstraZeneca wants the Prime Minister as its cheerleader, it should commit to equivalent investment in British manufacturing. Better still, Britain should be investing in its own nationalised pharmaceutical industry, building capacity that serves public health rather than shareholder returns.

Strategic protection for critical industries. Steel, green technology, pharmaceuticals, advanced manufacturing: these should not be offshored simply because capital prefers lower costs and fewer regulations elsewhere. The closure of Port Talbot while ministers chase photo opportunities in Beijing tells you everything about where priorities actually lie.

Democratic scrutiny of trade missions. Parliament should assess whether these arrangements genuinely benefit the British economy or merely facilitate elite mobility and corporate access. Whatever happened to the promise of trade deals going through Parliament? That commitment seems to have evaporated the moment it became inconvenient to the corporate interests travelling in the Prime Minister’s entourage.

Until then, these summits remain what they have always been: expensive theatre for the benefit of the few, conducted at the expense of the many. Starmer looked lost in Beijing because there was nothing to find. No win for working people. No strengthening of industrial capacity. Just another transaction in the long decline of a country that once built things, now content to broker them.

Growth is a hollow promise when the roots are planted in someone else’s soil.