BEIJING, SHANGHAI & TOKYO – Exactly what did Sir Keir Starmer actually get from his tour of China this week?
There were certainly some wins: the biggest was an agreement by Xi Jinping to drop the sanctions on six MPs and peers who have spoken out against Chinese human rights abuses in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and elsewhere.
Reasonably enough, the Prime Minister painted this as the sort of breakthrough which would not have been possible without his decision to travel in person to Beijing for a three-hour meeting and lunch with China’s President.
Two smaller but tangible victories for Starmer were securing a deal to allow Brits to visit China visa-free for up to 30 days, which business and cultural leaders travelling with him said would make a big difference, and persuading the country to halve the tariff it applies to imports of Scottish and Irish whiskies.
He also announced billions of pounds of business deals, but as always these agreements are easy to announce and harder to deliver in practice. The most eye-catching element was that the company behind the viral Labubu doll is planning to open seven new shops in Britain – and, surreally, Starmer himself is now the proud owner of a Labubu after being given one as a gift by Xi, although he will surely not be allowed to keep it given the clear espionage potential of a hidden camera or bug inside the demonic fluffy creature.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer visits Yuyuan Garden on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026 in Shanghai, China. (Carl Court/Pool Photo via AP)Overall, the trip – which concludes on Saturday with a brief stop in Tokyo for talks with Japan’s relatively new prime minister – was not some massive breakthrough. Britain and China are still supporting opposite sides in the Ukraine war, and there is no sign of a deal to free UK citizen Jimmy Lai from the Hong Kong jail where he is awaiting sentencing for publishing anti-Communist material.
Xi is one of the two most powerful people in the world, and Starmer is, well, not. His influence over the Chinese regime was always likely to be fairly limited.
But as he chatted to other passengers on the plane from Shanghai to Tokyo, sporting a tie with oxen on it (prompting jokes about a “bull in a China shop”), the Prime Minister appeared relaxed and pleased with his progress.
His decision to reset the relationship with China paid dividends for British companies that had previously struggled to get the Communist government to clear the obstacles in their way when they wanted to do business, according to diplomats.
And striking up a more cordial dialogue with the country may well pay dividends in years to come, increasing Britain’s leverage in geopolitical debates at a time when Donald Trump so often drowns out the voices of others.
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But it is not likely that this relatively successful diplomatic mission will do anything to help Starmer’s position back at home, despite his repeated insistence that his trip was in some unspecified way designed to ease cost-of-living pressures in the UK.
When he lands back in London on Sunday, he will again have to deal with angry voters and Labour MPs who are wondering whether a change of leader is now the only way to keep their jobs at the next general election.
Starmer is playing the long game on China. The problem is that he may not be around to reap the rewards.
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