UK’s new foreign minister hits Beijing on Monday for trade talks – Reuters

As reported by Reuters, the UK’s new Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt will be undergoing cooperation talks with his Chinese counterpart early this week.

Key quotes

“Hunt and Wang Yi, China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, are expected to discuss free trade, enforcing sanctions on North Korea and how Britain and China can work together on global challenges such as climate change, Britain’s Foreign Office said.

Speaking ahead of the visit, Hunt said that as Britain leaves the European Union it was committed to deepening its partnership with China.  “The UK-China Strategic Dialogue is an important opportunity to intensify our cooperation on shared challenges in international affairs, ranging from global free trade to non-proliferation and environmental challenges, under the UK-China Global Partnership and ‘Golden Era’ for UK-China relations,” he said.

His predecessor quit earlier this month in protest at the government’s plan to maintain a close trading relationship with the European Union after Brexit, a strategy that (the UK’s Boris) Johnson said would make it much more difficult to do free trade deals.”