Britain’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, is scheduled to arrive in Beijing on Friday on a two-day visit aimed at resetting and smoothing ties with China while acknowledging differences between the two countries over issues including human rights and the war in Ukraine.
Mr. Lammy is set to meet with the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi on Friday before traveling to Shanghai for meetings with British business leaders that have operations there.
Ahead of the visit, the British government said the foreign secretary would urge China to curtail its political and economic support of Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.
“Engagement with China is pragmatic and necessary to support U.K. and global interests,” said Mr. Lammy in remarks released ahead of his arrival. “From stopping Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, to supporting a global green transition, we must speak often and candidly across both areas of contention as well as areas for cooperation in the U.K.’s national interest.”
In a statement, the British government said it recognized that there were “significant differences including on democratic values and freedoms, Hong Kong and support for Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine.” But it added that there were also “shared interests, including a global green energy transition, and deep economic links with China.”
British officials see the visit as an attempt to re-engage with China after a period under a series of Conservative governments that was marked by several sharp changes of tone.
In 2015, the Conservative chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, George Osborne, called for a “golden decade” of Sino-British cooperation, but over the following years the relationship steadily became more adversarial. Earlier this year, Rishi Sunak, the then prime minister, said that China represented the “greatest state-based threat” to Britain’s economic security.
Ahead of the election that Labour won in July, the party pledged that “after 14 years of damaging Conservative inconsistency over China,” it would bring “a long-term and strategic approach to managing our relations,” adding: “We will cooperate where we can, compete where we need to and challenge where we must.”
Mr. Lammy has called his approach to foreign policy “progressive realism.” But critics question how he will be able to cooperate, compete with and challenge China simultaneously, while also keeping in step with U.S. policy toward Beijing.
At home, Mr. Lammy is under pressure to raise the issue of human rights in China. On Wednesday, Mr. Sunak, who is leader of the Conservative Party until his successor is chosen, called on the foreign secretary to use his Beijing trip to condemn recent Chinese military exercises in the Taiwan Strait and to persuade the government in Beijing to end sanctions against several British lawmakers who had raised concerns about human rights in China.
Answering Mr. Sunak in Parliament, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, said that “continued military activity in the strait is not conducive to peace and stability” and that the government would press for the lifting of sanctions on British members of Parliament.
“There is a clear political desire to differentiate this government from the approach of the previous leadership, and an institutional interest in direct engagement,” said Sophia Gaston, a foreign-policy analyst based in London. “But we must remember that Beijing has been preparing for this for a long time, and will doggedly pursue its own interests.”
Britain’s new government may hope that an improvement in relations could yield some economic benefits and help to spur badly needed growth in the domestic economy.
Earlier this week, the government said that it does not plan to follow the European Union in imposing tariffs on imports of electric vehicles from China. Earlier this month, the bloc opted for import duties on Chinese-made E.V.s of up to 45 percent in a dispute over subsidies it said are being provided to manufacturers in China. Beijing denies unfair competition.
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