<\/p>\n
L<\/span>et\u2019s face it, this was never going to be a meeting of equals. Keir Starmer<\/a> had been desperate to squeeze in a trip to China for some time. Another country to tick off his list and he always feels a lot better about himself when he\u2019s abroad. Less noise from his unhappy MPs. Plus he loved the pomp and ceremony that came with it. The large flags. The military bands. A country that treated him with respect. Almost. Besides, Mark Carney and Emmanuel Macron had both made recent trips. He had seen their holiday photos. Now it was his turn. He couldn\u2019t bear to be left out.<\/p>\n The Chinese? Not so much. They couldn\u2019t really see the point. But they would schedule in a couple of meetings on the condition the UK government gave the green light to the new \u201cmega embassy\u201d near the Tower of London. Consider it done, said Keir. All systems go for the first prime-ministerial visit since Theresa May in 2018.<\/p>\n There were a few more conditions. Xi Jinping<\/a> had made it clear there would be a joint press conference with himself and Starmer. Xi doesn\u2019t take well to answering hostile questions from the media. Instead there would be a joint statement in which they mouthed mostly bland platitudes. A way of filling dead air. Keir had quickly agreed. Any opportunity to prevent a possible diplomatic incident was fine by him. He would handle the British media in his own way. Taking a long time to say not very much. Words that would die within milliseconds of broadcast. As though his entire plan for the trip had been to get as little TV coverage as possible. An unusual strategy. But the only one that made any real sense.<\/p>\n The meeting between Starmer and Xi had been scheduled to last 40 minutes. Hardly worth a four-day trip with a large trade delegation, you\u2019d have thought. Maybe the two leaders really didn\u2019t have anything much to say to each other. Certainly not for public consumption at a bilateral meeting in Beijing. Or maybe it was all a bluff. Shoot low and when the meeting runs to double the estimated time, both sides can claim it as a sign of how well they were getting on. Or maybe the simultaneous translation failed and the two leaders had to get the other\u2019s sentences repeated back in their own language.<\/p>\n Then the end-of-summit statements. For Keir this was everything he had dreamed of. Sitting at the same table as a previously hostile superpower. Though obviously he wasn\u2019t going to do more than allude to any potential differences. That generally wasn\u2019t seen as a great idea on a first date. What Britain needed with China<\/a> was a \u201csophisticated\u201d relationship.<\/p>\n