A review of UK-China relations has been delayed until after the chancellor makes his first trip to Beijing next month, the Guardian has learned, including an alleged spy who was a friend of Prince Andrew.
Rachel Reeves will travel to China in early January as part of a welcome move by the Labor government. The trip will be aimed at financial services, and Tulip Siddiq, the urban minister, is expected to travel with the chancellor.
This will raise concerns among China hawks who are set to reject pressure to submit business deals with China to greater scrutiny.
Such pressure comes after the expulsion of Yang Tengbo, a businessman who ran York’s Pitch@Palace project in China and is said by officials to be associated with the Chinese state security arm. On Monday, Yang asked the court lift the order of anonymity wherefore he cries out against himself “ill-founded,” and affirms that he is not a spy.
As part of the Labor manifesto commitment, the government is carrying out a cross-Whitehall audit of the UK’s relations with China, which it had initially decided to publish at the same time as Reeves’ trip.
However, the hearing is now being pushed back to the source, a Foreign Office source confirmed. Only part of the findings will be published.
Two sources familiar with the topics of the review said they were expected to make policy recommendations that included improving China’s government capabilities.
Ministers are under pressure to declare China a national security threat by including it in a new scheme to withdraw foreign lobbyists. But banks and other financial services firms are concerned about the implications this has on their operations.
The foreign registration authority is part of the security shake-up laws announced by the previous Conservative government and by those who work for a foreign government to declare their role or face criminal prosecution. Similar policies have been introduced in the US and Australia.
It would be a major step in the declaration, which called for a political order, and an order in countries deemed to be an increased threat to national security, which is likely to include Russia, North Korea and Iran.
MI5 and Home Office officials are said to believe that vital China is also designated as an increased risk. Tom Tugendhat, the former security minister, said on Monday that the security services would have been “very, very clear” without that plan.
A No 10 source said Starmer had not yet taken a decision, but believed his instincts would not be to impede growth or undermine the healing of relations with Beijing.
Sources who worked at the Treasury and the Home Office under former Tory prime minister Rishi Sunak said the scheme was almost ready to be announced shortly before the election called this summer, despite long-standing disputes between the two departments over whether to include China. in the following third.
A former government source said it was likely that Starmer would make a descent call that would designate China. They said Sunak “wanted to do it on the side”, but the choice was called off as the treasury began preparing for the reforms.
“With HMT” [the Treasury] He doesn’t want anything to happen, it’s very good to put a rock in the engine and slow things down,” the source said. “They were trying to work it out so it wouldn’t kill the city.”
A different Conservative source said: “It took quite a lot of work between the home office and the treasury to get it to the stage where it could be announced that … foreign concerns would not necessarily be completely reduced – it would eventually come down to it. decision for the officials concerned.
“What is happening now is that both funds still retain because they want to take care of the concerns of the financial services when the links in China are protected… The institutional treasury will have loads of representations received from foreigners – this will be [had] chilling effect. “
Whitehall sources do not expect China’s design to be resolved until the spring, when the scheme will become operational in the summer. Dan Jarvis, the security minister, promised to put the rules in parliament in the new year and said the plan was “not ready to be implemented as requested”.
Earlier, the minister said in discussions about the scheme in the Conservative government that there was a strong push within the Treasury and suggested that the same things would be raised under Labor. “Home office – as always – he had not thought through. You can’t say that someone who is visiting China is going to fill out a work letter and prove that he is not a spy,” they said.
“The question is – do you want growth in the UK or not? Knowing China is not the same as Russia. The UK just has to be equal to China. It is one of the world’s largest economies and they are the most powerful. Despite the rhetoric – that’s exactly what Americans do.
On Monday the Chinese embassy in London accused some MPs having a “twisted mind towards China” and “sounding anti-China” were trying to “appease China, attack the Chinese community in the UK and undermine normal exchanges between China and the UK”.