LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said that China posed a threat to Britain but it was also right to have dialogue with Beijing over global challenges such as climate change and the war in Ukraine.
“I’m very clear that China poses a systemic challenge to both our values and our interests and it represents the single biggest state threat to our economic security and that’s why it’s right that we take the steps that are necessary to protect ourselves,” Sunak claimed on Tuesday during an interview with Sky News on the sidelines of the G20 summit underway in Indonesia without elaborating on details.
The British premier, however, added that he was still hopeful that he could meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping while at the summit’s venue in Bali.
“If we want to solve big global challenges like public health, Russia and Ukraine, fixing the global economy, or indeed climate change, it’s important to have a dialogue and to engage with China as part of solving those challenges,” Sunak then asserted.
A planned G20 meeting between British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and President Xi Jinping of China has been cancelled due to “scheduling issues”, a Downing Street spokesperson said.
The schedule at the summit on the Indonesian island of Bali has been disrupted by an emergency meeting called after a missile killed two people in Poland near its border with Ukraine.
Sunak and Xi had been due to hold the first meeting between British and Chinese leaders for almost five years, with Sunak’s office saying beforehand that the prime minister would seek to establish a “frank and constructive relationship”.
Relations between London and Beijing have deteriorated in the last decade as Britain expressed alarm that an open door to Chinese investment could pose national security risks.
According to UK-based media reports, a British prime minister has not spoken to the Chinese president by phone for more than 18 months and has not had a face to face meeting since early 2018. Theresa May visited China for a three-day trade visit in January 2018 and Boris Johnson spoke to Xi during the COVID pandemic in March 2021.
The reports cited unnamed British officials as saying that the talks would have had broad aims to find areas where the London and Beijing could start to make progress, including on energy security and the climate crisis, as well as encouraging China to play a more active role on Russia and Ukraine.