(Bloomberg) -- UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves will travel to China during the second week of January to revive high-level discussions aimed at improving economic ties between the countries.
Reeves will meet with China’s vice premier, He Lifeng, in Beijing on Jan. 11, according to a person familiar with her plans. A day later she will go to Shanghai to meet with British companies operating in the world’s second-largest economy. The date of the meeting was first reported by Reuters.
Both countries are likely to discuss the possibility of re-opening the Joint Economic and Trade Commission later in the year. This was set up in 1996 to promote trade and investment between the two countries, but most talks between the two countries were suspended in 2020 after China imposed a national security law on Hong Kong.
The latest talks come as Labour finds itself torn between seeking a closer working relationship with the Asian superpower, and distancing itself in an effort to burnish ties with US President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming government.
Labour has vowed to boost growth in the British economy during its time in power, and forming stronger ties with China could help to achieve that goal. The Treasury has drawn up proposals to focus an economic rapprochement on financial services and clean energy, Bloomberg reported earlier this week.
However Trump has vowed to slap 60% tariffs on imports from China, and is likely to lean on allies to take a more hawkish stance toward the country.
A recent spying scandal, in which businessman Yang Tengbo, who has links with Prince Andrew, was banned from the country, has added to mistrust of China among UK lawmakers.
Reeves will be the second UK cabinet minister to visit China since Labour came to power in July’s general election, after Foreign Secretary David Lammy did so in October. It marks a change in approach to the previous Conservative government — ex-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called China “the greatest state-based threat to our economic security.”
She will likely be accompanied on the trip by a business delegation including HSBC and Standard Chartered, among others.
(Updates with details of Treasury proposals in fifth paragraph. An earlier version of this story was corrected to say second-largest economy in second paragraph.)
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