Keir Starmer played the China card in Rio – and sent a message to a hawkish Donald Trump | Simon Tisdall

The PM and other western leaders are cosying up to Beijing. If the president-elect imposes punitive tariffs on Chinese imports, he will give Xi the upper hand

Both were lawyers before they became politicians, but that’s where the similarities between Keir Starmer and Richard Nixon end. The former US president resigned in disgrace at the height of the Watergate corruption scandal exactly 50 years ago. Britain’s prime minister may have been unwise to accept free tickets from Arsenal FC – but he’s not in Nixon’s league.

Except, perhaps, was there just a touch of Tricky Dicky about Starmer’s meeting with China’s president, Xi Jinping, at last week’s G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro? Watergate aside, Nixon is famous for his groundbreaking 1972 visit to Beijing, which opened the way to normalised relations between the US and Red China.

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Keir Starmer played the China card in Rio – and sent a message to a hawkish Donald Trump | Simon Tisdall

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