Keir Starmer meets Xi Jinping in Beijing to promote business ties

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2026, seeking to promote business ties with China. Mr. Starmer, the first British leader to visit China since Theresa May in 2018, traveled with a large business delegation that included executives from banking, pharmaceutical and automobile companies and has emphasized commerce over security and human rights.

“For years, our approach to China has been dogged by inconsistency — blowing hot and cold, from Golden Age to Ice Age,” Mr. Starmer said in an official announcement about the visit. “It is in our national interest to engage with China,” he told reporters after arriving in Beijing.

“There are huge opportunities to be had.” The visit came as relations between the United States and its European allies have been shaken by disputes over security and trade. Mr. Starmer is trying to woo Beijing without provoking the ire of President Trump; the trip followed Mr. Trump’s threat to slap a 100 percent tariff on Canada if Prime Minister Mark Carney made a trade deal with Beijing, though there was no indication such an agreement was in the works, and Mr.

Trump has walked back related threats over Greenland. For Mr. Xi, Mr. Starmer’s trip was the latest in a flurry of Western leaders’ visits that China has held up as evidence it is a stable global power.

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