However, they indicate that Britain\u2019s ruling Labour Party has no intention of cooling a courtship that has generated significant opposition \u2014 including from some of its own MPs \u2014 due to concerns over China\u2019s human rights record and espionage activity.<\/p>\n
Cooper herself said Britain takes security issues around China \u201cimmensely seriously,\u201d adding: \u201cThat involves transnational repression, it involves the espionage threats and challenges that we face.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking to POLITICO ahead of a visit Thursday to the Arctic, where China is taking an increasing strategic interest, Cooper added: \u201cThere are also some wider economic security issues around, for example, the control of critical minerals around the world, and some of those issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we\u2019re very conscious of the broad range of China threats that are posed alongside what we also know is China\u2019s role as being our third-largest trading partner, and so the complexity of the relationship with China and the work that needs to done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Security taken \u2018very seriously\u2019<\/p>\n
Labour officials have repeatedly emphasised their desire to engage directly with the world\u2019s second-largest economy, including frank dialogue on areas where they disagree. Starmer said in December that he rejected a \u201cbinary choice\u201d between having a golden age or freezing China out.<\/p>\n
However, the timing is acutely sensitive for the Labour government, which is likely to approve plans for a new Chinese \u201cmega-embassy\u201d in London in the coming days. The site near Tower Bridge is very close to telecommunications cables that run to the capital\u2019s financial district.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"However, they indicate that Britain\u2019s ruling Labour Party has no intention of cooling a courtship that has generated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3485,891,6229,627,3764,59,57,58,937,146,2694,420,50,1445,470,1351,56,54,158,55,20765],"class_list":["post-370651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-bridges","tag-china","tag-communications","tag-david-lammy","tag-espionage","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-human-rights","tag-intelligence","tag-jonathan-reynolds","tag-keir-starmer","tag-news","tag-rachel-reeves","tag-rights","tag-security","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-yvette-cooper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}