But having followed the prime minister, at home and abroad, for the nearly 19 months of his time in office, he has now set out his vision for foreign policy – and begun to match it with actions and visits.
“We have to engage with this volatile world” is how he summarised his approach when I spoke to him. “I don’t think I have known a time when what is happening internationally is impacting what is going on back home so directly.”
He is stung and irritated by the label lobbed at him by critics who describe him as “never here Keir” because of the number of foreign trips he does.
He has notably tried to push back on this trip, repeatedly talking about how events overseas have a bearing on the cost of living at home. He even made a reference to prices in the supermarkets when he was talking to President Xi in the Great Hall of the People.
Sir Keir has sought a close relationship with President Trump and secured it. For now at least. This is grounded in being judicious in his public remarks and only criticising the president when he thinks it is absolutely essential, such as recently over Greenland and the British troops killed and injured in Afghanistan.
He describes the UK as having “reset” its relationship with the European Union post-Brexit and has done a trade deal with India. And now, here he is in China.
Inevitably, if he leans too far in one direction, it limits his options in another. Rejoin the EU’s customs union, and those trade deals with others would be gone, as he points out to his Labour colleagues who have called for just that.
Be seen to get too close to China, and prepare for the verbal hairdryer from the White House.
The trade-offs are legion.
“I’m a pragmatist, a British pragmatist, applying common sense,” the prime minister told us on the plane, saying his desire was to “make Britain face outwards again.”
Outwards and in multiple directions is his approach, moving incrementally.