FOREIGN Secretary James Cleverly’s trip to China on Wednesday is unlikely to make real progress unless Britain stops “prioritising our status as a loyal junior partner to US imperialism,” a China expert told the Morning Star today.

Carlos Martinez, author of The East is Still Red and an editor of the Friends of Socialist China website, said the minister’s decision to visit Beijing was good news.

Mr Cleverly is due in the Chinese capital for talks with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Vice-President Han Zheng.

Despite calls from hard-right backbenchers for a “decoupling” from China — including, recently, for Britain’s electric vehicle (EV) commitments to be scrapped because of China’s dominance of EV technology — the Foreign Secretary stressed that “no significant global problem — from climate change to pandemic prevention, from economic instability to nuclear proliferation — can be solved without China.”

But he also warned that he would reproach Beijing for alleged human rights abuses, criticise its approach to governing the former British colony of Hong Kong and urge it to play a more “responsible” role in resolving conflicts such as the war in Ukraine.

China has proposed a 12-point peace plan for Ukraine, which Britain has so far ignored. Beijing’s mediation between Saudi Arabia and Iran has also led to peace talks in Yemen, whose Houthi authorities, which have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition since 2015, say Britain has tried to wreck.

Mr Martinez said Mr Cleverly “hit the nail on the head” by recognising that global problems cannot be solved without China.

“Furthermore, there are direct economic benefits to improved Britain-China relations, particularly in terms of encouraging Chinese investment and stimulating exports of British products,” he said.

But Mr Martinez added that all this was put at risk by Washington’s new cold war, including “military encirclement (via Aukus, war games, freedom of navigation assertions and so on), attempting to stoke conflict across the Taiwan Strait, sanctions, tariffs and a vicious propaganda war.

“Britain has involved itself in all of this. While that remains the case and while the US remains on its hegemonic course, it’s unlikely that there will be any really significant steps forward in the Britain-China relationship.”