Coffee House Shots: what should the UK's relationship with China be?
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The Spectator
4.3 • 826 Ratings
🗓️ 31 January 2026
⏱️ 17 minutes
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Summary
As Keir Starmer's visit to China draws to a close, Sam Olsen – who runs the States of Play substack – and Times columnist Cindy Yu join Patrick Gibbons to discuss how the UK should manage its relationship with China. Starmer's visit has drawn criticism from various China hawks – and from President Trump – but is there a way for the UK to balance legitimate security concerns with the need to trade with the world's second largest economic power?
Plus, to what extent to the British public care about these geopolitical concerns? Cindy and Sam explain why is it important for policymakers to explain how these trips link back to domestic issues – and Cindy name checks James Cleverly as she highlights the importance of consistency amongst the political class.
Produced by Patrick Gibbons.
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Transcript
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| 0:35.1 | Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectators' Daily Politics Podcast. |
| 0:39.5 | I'm Patrick Gibbons and today I'm joined by Sam Olson, who runs the States of Play Substack, |
| 0:44.2 | and Cindy, a big welcome back to Cindy, who regular shots listeners will know. |
| 0:48.9 | Hi, Cindy, hi, hi, Sam. |
| 0:50.0 | Hi. |
| 0:50.5 | Thanks for having me back. |
| 0:51.8 | Cindy, we should probably come to you first. |
| 0:53.6 | Kirstam has been in China this week. He's still there now. He's in Shanghai. You know, what have you made of Kirstama's visit? Is it a big win for Labour or something else? Look, I don't think we can call it a big win, but I don't think it was meant to be some kind of blockbuster visit in any case, because actually the optics of that would have looked |
| 1:12.0 | so bad if Kiyama looked too chummy with the Chinese and we're recording this on Friday and |
| 1:19.4 | we're hearing a bit more about the arrangements that have come out as a result of this the visa |
| 1:25.1 | free travel for the 30 days for British nationals, the lifting |
| 1:28.8 | of sanctions of British MPs, a really big AstraZeneca investment deal into China, amongst |
| 1:35.8 | other things as well. But I think, you know, some of the reaction has been, is it? Like, is that |
| 1:41.8 | all we're getting from this? And I actually think that if they had to come |
| 1:44.9 | back with a massive trade deal, A, that would have really irritated the Americans and Donald |
| 1:50.0 | Trump is already a little bit, you know, difficult. And B, I think that would have made, you know, |
... |
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