Labour's attitude to China looks just as confused as the Tories'

David Lammy is in China on a mission to reset relations with Beijing. But the Foreign Secretary has also pledged to raise some difficult subjects with his hosts. For a politician who heavily criticised the Conservatives’ approach to China, it’s not clear that Lammy is coming up with anything new now he’s in office.

Lammy has talked up the difficult issues he will raise with Beijing

When Lammy was shadow foreign secretary, he was brave on China. Only last year, he agreed that China’s actions in Xinjiang were genocide and pledged to ‘act multilaterally with our partners’ to pursue a legal reckoning for Beijing. A few months later, he lambasted the Tories for inconsistency on its China approach: ‘What we can’t have is six positions on China’.

But Lammy – whose rhetoric on China has softened considerably – seems to have forgotten that pledge. Just over three months into the new Labour government, it’s hard to tell what has really changed on Britain’s approach to China.