British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak has said China poses a systemic challenge to UK values and interests as his government condemned Beijing after a BBC journalist was beaten while covering protests in Shanghai.

British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak has said China poses a systemic challenge to UK values and interests as his government condemned Beijing after a BBC journalist was beaten while covering protests in Shanghai.

In his first major foreign policy speech, Sunak said the golden era of UK relations with China was over, along with the naive idea that trade would automatically lead to social and political reform. As a result, the United Kingdom would need to evolve our approach to China”, he said in his speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in London, adding that Beijing was “consciously competing for global influence using all the levers of state power.

Meanwhile, some in Sunak’s Conservative Party have been critical of the prime minister, regarding him as less hawkish on China than his predecessor Liz Truss. Similarly, Sunak had been due to meet China’s President Xi Jinping at this month’s G20 summit in Bali but the plan fell through.