Keir Starmer has become the first British Prime Minister to hold talks with China’s President Xi Jinping since Theresa May. He says he wants to engage in areas of “clear, mutual agreement” and hopes that Labour can have a “serious and pragmatic” relationship with Beijing. This follows David Lammy’s recent visit to China and precedes one by Rachel Reeves early next year.
Two of their five ‘ missions ‘ drive Labour’s eagerness to engage with Beijing. The first is growth. With ministers desperately keen to reverse their self-induced tidal wave of gloom into life, any renminbi that can be encouraged in Britain’s way will be gratefully received. To Marco Rubio’s chagrin, ministers had hoped Shein, the fashion company, will list on the London Stock Exchange.
The second, as Katy Balls highlights, decarbonising the electricity grid by 2030 – Ed Miliband’s delusional attempt to crown himself the most appalling minister of a pretty abysmal bunch. Without kowtowing to China, Labour’s net zero crusade is a non-starter. His plans, as Clare Coutinho explained this morning, are undeliverable. But pursuing them entails a dangerous reliance on Beijing.
China has cornered the global market in the technologies and minerals required for the so-called ‘green transition’. Per The Financial Times, “China is responsible for producing about 90 per cent of the world’s rare earth elements, at least 80 per cent of all the stages of making solar panels, and 60 per cent of wind turbines and electric-car batteries”. Consider it the Saudi Arabia of green.
If Miliband intends to construct as much offshore wind in the next couple of years as in the last six, to double our onshore wind capacity, and triple our number of solar farms, he will not be able to do it without Beijing. Britain is already the world’s second-largest installer of offshore wind. But of the world’s top ten wind turbine manufacturers, ten are Chinese, and none are British.
With Port Talbot shuttered and British Volt collapsed, the idea we could ever develop the manufacturing capacity required to wean ourselves off China in Miliband’s sadomasochistic timetable is ludicrous. Nor are we able to compete with the vast subsidies dolled out by the US and the EU. Going green means going Chinese – a step closer to Britain’s future as a giant Bicester Village.
A third of EVs sold in Britain are made in China. Western manufacturers struggle to compete against Chinese subsidies and slave labour. Even as consumers prove far more reluctant to switch to electric cars than Boris Johnson has hoped, Labour have reintroduced the 2030 target for ending the sale of new petrol and diesel cars that was pushed back by Rishi Sunak.
Louise Haigh promises greater flexibility for car manufacturers in the number of EVs they have to sell a year. But Labour won’t budge on the overall target. Instead of sacking Miliband and reverse ferreting on our death march towards higher costs and blackouts, Starmer finds himself increasingly reliant on a hostile one-party state to compensate for Britain’s industrial impotency.
The US and EU have become sufficiently wise to China’s threat to see Joe Biden slap a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese EVs and EU members back one of 45 per cent. Labour would rather swamp our car industry with Chinese imports by the decade’s end than copy Sunak’s step back. This is course of action is unlikely to be welcomed by the incoming occupant of the White House.
Pragmatic cooperation with Beijing is sensible. The enthusiasm of Liz Truss for speaking loudly whilst carrying a very small stick was as delusional as anything pushed by Miliband. As Pimlico Journal put it, “British foreign policy has been at its most successful when driven by realism and self-interest” and our “worst foreign policy disasters…by humanitarian impulses”. Don’t poke the panda.
If trotting after Washington means plunging ourselves into war in the Far East, we should do everything we can to avoid it. But being more amiable with China must come alongside safeguarding our national economic interests. There is no point in trying to extricate ourselves from being Washington’s vassal only to become Beijing’s. Net zero at all costs is a recipe for national humiliation.