Liam Byrne

Liam Byrne

Labour — Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North

Speaking in the House of Commons on 2 February 2026

Debate

China and Japan

Contribution

I want to welcome the Prime Minister’s serious engagement with serious power: it is essential to safeguarding our national interest. The complexities of China require from Britain a whole-of-society approach, which is completely impossible until the Government publish a clear China strategy to explain what is off limits and how we are going to rebalance competition with Chinese industry that is six times over-subsidised compared with our firms. Last week in Europe, I heard very clearly from our partners that they are worried that the lackadaisical approach to policing Chinese competition risks deeper integration with Europe. The EU has 143 trade measures in place against China; we have none. So will the Prime Minister now follow up his meetings last week and publish a strategy, co-ordinated with our allies, so we can take out the guesswork and put in place the guardrails for this important relationship?

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