Monday 28 November 2022 11:45 PM Rishi Sunak says idea that trade with China would bring human rights was naive ... trends now

The so-called golden era of relations with China is over, Rishi Sunak declared last night.

In a keynote foreign policy speech, the Prime Minister said his Tory predecessors were naive for believing closer China-UK trading ties would lead to social and political reform in the communist country.

At the Lord Mayor’s Banquet at London’s Guildhall, the PM condemned Beijing over its human rights record and for suppressing peaceful protests, including assaulting and arresting a BBC journalist. 

Former chancellor George Osborne declared a golden era of Sino-British relations when he visited Beijing in 2015, vowing to make Britain China’s ‘best partner in the west’. It led to the UK throwing itself into tens of billions of pounds-worth of trade deals.

Chinese President Xi Jinping even joined then PM David Cameron for a pint at a Buckinghamshire pub during a state visit later that year.

But last night Mr Sunak said: ‘Let’s be clear, the so-called “golden era” is over, along with the naive idea that trade would lead to social and political reform.’

He added: ‘We recognise China poses a systemic challenge to our values and interests, a challenge that grows more acute as it moves towards even greater authoritarianism. Instead of listening to their people’s protests, the Chinese government has chosen to crack down further.’

But critics accused him of not being tough enough by describing Beijing as a ‘challenge’ rather than a ‘threat’. He also used last night’s speech to call for ‘simplistic Cold War rhetoric’ to be dropped in favour of ‘robust pragmatism’, insisting that ‘diplomacy and engagement’ were needed.

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, one of several Tory MPs critical of China’s human rights record and influence, said: ‘This is

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