'This is what Starmer must say when he visits duplicitous, sinister China this week', Benedict Rogers

The Prime Minister must raise human rights and security concerns when he goes to Beijing

Sir Keir Starmer is scheduled to travel to Beijing this week, having just approved China’s controversial new “super-embassy” in London. The visit comes amidst increasing concerns about China’s campaign of influence, infiltration, espionage and transnational repression across Britain; and at a time when Xi Jinping is intensifying his crackdown on human rights across China.

Critics would argue now is not the time to go, and certainly not the time to continue to kowtow. Today’s revelation that China has established a network of at least 75 covert influence outposts across the UK, embedded in universities, businesses and diaspora communities, is alarming.

Documented by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), the findings point to the activities of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s United Front – a body used to coerce, co-opt and influence decision-makers, shape narratives and suppress criticism. The findings follow earlier similar revelations from the United States, where China operated similar covert influence outposts.

But this is just the latest in a series of alarming reports of Beijing’s antics – and the British Government’s utter failure to tackle them. Last October, the prosecution of two alleged China spies collapsed when the Government refused to describe China as a threat to national security.

Academic freedom has been increasingly threatened. Last November, Sheffield Hallam University halted research led by Prof Laura Murphy into forced labour in supply chains, under pressure from Beijing, and two years ago University College London forced academic Michelle Shipworth to drop a module that displeased the CCP.

Beijing’s transnational repression has intensified. Hong Kong exiles who have fled to the United Kingdom seeking refuge have faced threats from CCP agents, and Beijing has placed arrest warrants and bounties on some of their heads. Several reported that their neighbours received letters offering a reward if they hand them over to the Chinese embassy.

One Hong Kong exile, Carmen Lau, was subjected to an obscene campaign of sexual harassment. Even I have received anonymous threatening letters, as have my neighbours and my mother, who was told to tell me to “shut up”.

On top of all this, there is the intensifying crackdown on human rights in China. A British national, 78 year-old media entrepreneur and pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai, has spent the past five years in solitary confinement and is in deteriorating health. He is awaiting sentencing under Hong Kong’s draconian National Security Law, and may well die in jail.

So when he meets Xi Jinping, Sir Keir must prioritise these issues. He should make it clear that there can be no trade deals until China stops threatening our citizens at home and releases our citizen, Mr Lai, from jail in Hong Kong.

The Prime Minister should also raise other human rights concerns. He should seek the release of 22 year-old Chinese student Tara Zhang Yadi, who was due to begin a degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London last September but instead is in a Chinese prison.

Her crime? Peacefully promoting understanding of Tibetan culture and inter-ethnic harmony among Chinese students while studying in Paris.

The genocide of the Uyghurs, recognised by the United States and several parliaments around the world, including ours, and by an independent tribunal chaired by British barrister Sir Geoffrey Nice KC, should be high up on the Prime Minister’s agenda, along with the issue of forced organ harvesting, also documented by a tribunal led by Sir Geoffrey. The Prime Minister would do well to read these two judgments by his fellow barrister on his flight to Beijing.

The recent crackdown on unregistered Christian churches and imprisonment of dozens of pastors, together with the jailing of Tibetan Buddhist monks and Uyghur scholars, should also be raised. So too should the continued imprisonment of dissidents across China, including Swedish national Gui Minhai, citizen journalist and lawyer Zhang Zhang – jailed for reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic – and human rights defenders Xi Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi.

Last year eight British Parliamentarians wrote to the Foreign Secretary to raise the case of pro-democracy activist Dr Wang Bingzhang, who has been in detention for 24 years after he was abducted by Chinese agents in Vietnam in 2002. The Prime Minister should demand the release of these and all political prisoners as a precondition for improved UK-China relations.

The human rights crisis in two neighbouring dictatorships – North Korea and Myanmar – and Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine must also be on the agenda. China is not only repressing its own people; it is also facilitating mass atrocity crimes abroad. Starmer must press Xi to stop supporting Putin’s war, stop arming the junta in Myanmar, and stop China’s policy of forced repatriation of North Korean refugees.

Last week, 19 human rights organisations wrote to the Prime Minister detailing all these issues. It is admittedly a long list, but it reflects the scale of the challenge Beijing poses. Starmer will achieve nothing by kowtowing. If he shows the CCP that he stands up for our values, our interests, our security and our citizens, he may achieve something. It is vital that he tries.

This article was published in The Telegraph on 26 January 2026.

Photo: Number 10, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons