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Grim economic news raises stakes for embattled chancellor Rachel Reeves' controversial China trip
Rachel Reeves' trip to China – the first by a British chancellor since 2019 - was always going to be controversial. In recent years Conservative governments have been keeping Beijing at arm's length - amid concern about espionage, the situation in Hong Kong, and the treatment of the Uyghurs.David Cameron's so-called "Golden Era" of engagement in the pursuit of economic investment, notoriously capped by a visit to an Oxfordshire pub for a pint with President Xi Jinping - has been widely written off as a naive mistake. There are many - not least the incoming US President Donald Trump - who believe we should maintain ... (full story)