{"id":76136,"date":"2026-01-29T15:46:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T06:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/29\/thursday-briefing-will-keir-starmers-cautious-china-gamble-pay-off"},"modified":"2026-01-29T15:46:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T06:46:22","slug":"thursday-briefing-will-keir-starmers-cautious-china-gamble-pay-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76136","title":{"rendered":"Thursday briefing: Will Keir Starmer\u2019s cautious China gamble pay off?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In today\u2019s newsletter: With China now central to the world\u2019s green tech\u200b and economic future, the UK faces a \u200bs\u200beries of strategic \u200bdiscussions it can no longer postpone<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Good morning. The Starmer has landed.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, Keir Starmer became the first British prime minister to make the trip to China since Theresa May\u2019s in 2018 (meaning a surprisingly large number of PMs didn\u2019t) and has vowed to bring \u201cstability and clarity\u201d to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/27\/keir-starmer-walks-tightrope-over-myriad-issues-in-quest-to-bolster-china-ties\">the UK\u2019s approach to Beijing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Iran <\/strong><\/em>| Donald Trump has warned time is running out for Tehran and said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/28\/trump-threat-us-iran-war-armada-nuclear-programme\">a massive US armada was moving quickly<\/a> towards the country.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Assisted Dying <\/strong><\/em>| Supporters of assisted dying will seek to force <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/2026\/jan\/28\/assisted-dying-supporters-to-force-through-bill-with-archaic-commons-procedure\">through the bill<\/a> using an archaic parliamentary procedure if it continues to be blocked by the Lords.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>UK politics <\/strong><\/em>| Centrist ideas are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2026\/jan\/28\/centrist-ideas-no-longer-wanted-in-conservative-party-says-kemi-badenoch\">no longer wanted<\/a> in the Conservative party, Kemi Badenoch has said.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Ofsted <\/strong><\/em>| A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/education\/2026\/jan\/28\/ofsted-brunel-academy-bristol-report-damien-egan-visit\">snap inspection<\/a> of a Bristol secondary school criticised for postponing a visit by an MP who is a member of a group that advocates for Israel has found \u201cno evidence of partisan political views\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>BBC <\/strong><\/em>| The BBC has named senior executive Rhodri Talfan Davies as its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/media\/2026\/jan\/28\/bbc-names-rhodri-talfan-davies-as-interim-general-director\">interim director general<\/a>, as the corporation continues the search for a permanent replacement for Tim Davie.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/29\/thursday-briefing-will-keir-starmers-cautious-china-gamble-pay-off\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In today\u2019s newsletter: With China now central to the world\u2019s green tech\u200b and economic future, the UK faces a \u200bs\u200beries of strategic \u200bdiscussions it can no longer postponeGood morning. The Starmer has landed.Yesterday, Keir Starmer became the first Briti&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":372,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,437,1622,4,42,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-economics","category-keir-starmer","category-politics","category-world-news","category-xi-jinping"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/372"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76137,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76136\/revisions\/76137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}