UK open to restarting China trade talks

LONDON — Britain’s business chief is “open” to reviving a key trade dialogue with China as the new U.K. government ramps up its engagement with Beijing after years in the deep freezer.

Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told POLITICO that trade is an area “where cooperation is possible with China” — but made clear that Britain would have its own trade asks of Beijing if it does start to re-engage.

The U.K.-China Joint Economic and Trade Commission (JETCO) — set up to boost bilateral trade and investment between the two countries — was frozen by the last Conservative government following Beijing’s Hong Kong clampdown.

POLITICO reported last year that Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had quietly drawn up plans to revive the JETCO, but ultimately failed to move forward before this summer’s snap election, which swept Labour to power.

Asked if the U.K. would reopen the JETCO, Reynolds said he was “certainly open to having a conversation” about it.

Britain has JETCO talks with a number of nations. They often come hand-in-hand with mini export deals and signal a desire to boost trade. Ministers and senior company representatives can attend the forums, which give countries a place to discuss trade barriers.

Reynolds said he had raised the issue of ongoing “pandemic restrictions on pork exports to China” with the nation’s Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen on the sidelines of last week’s G20 trade and investment ministers’ meeting.

The U.K.’s biggest abattoirs had their licenses to export to China suspended in 2022 following Covid-19 outbreaks in their facilities.

Reynolds said Chinese curbs on imported pork had “had a material impact on my local area where a factory closed on the back of that situation.”

“Obviously, what I want to know is, if [the JETCO] were to be reinstated, would it be a substantive way to resolve some of these issues?” Reynolds added.

Britain an ‘outlier’

The discussion between the pair comes hot on the heels of new U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s trip to Beijing and Shanghai this month. Plans are being drawn up for Chancellor Rachel Reeves to visit the country in early 2025.

Compared to other G7 countries “the U.K. is an outlier by how little engagement we have had” with China, Reynolds said.

Despite deep tensions between the United States and China “many senior U.S. politicians and Cabinet members are regularly engaging with Chinese counterparts,” he said. “It’s a lot more than us.”

And he added: “China is simultaneously a significant part of the global economy, our sixth largest trading partner in the U.K., and at the same time it’s not the same as a European country or the U.S. or Canada, or the conversation we’ve been having with Brazil here.

“It’s a relationship where sometimes you’ve got to have quite difficult conversations because you’re unhappy with moves on the Chinese side, but at the same time, where co-operation is possible with China, trade is [a] space where you’d expect that to be taking place.”