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Sir Keir Starmer should say “exactly what he thinks” when he meets Chinese leaders in Beijing this week, the last governor of Hong Kong has said.

Lord Chris Patten said the prime minister should not “lean over backwards” to avoid offending China, adding: “The Chinese do business on exactly the same basis as everybody else.”

In an interview with the Press Association, Lord Patten said British policy towards China rested on “a complete falsehood” that “in order to do business with them, we must avoid saying anything they don’t like or doing anything that they don’t like”.

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[Keir Starmer’s] trip follows the approval of a new Chinese embassy in London, and the prime minister is due to be accompanied by business leaders as he seeks to improve trading relations with the Asian superpower.

But he also faces pressure from home to raise several difficult subjects with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, including China’s espionage activity, the treatment of the Uyghur minority and the imprisonment of Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigner and British national.

Lai, 78, has been in detention for more than five years, much of that time in solitary confinement, having been arrested in 2020 under Hong Kong’s new national security law.

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Lord Patten, who governed Hong Kong from 1992 until it was handed over to China in 1997, said Lai’s case should be “one of the first things” Sir Keir raises with the Chinese government during his visit.

“If he doesn’t raise the Jimmy Lai case, he’s been pathetic,” he said.

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Lord Patten added: “What will not persuade them is if it becomes the ‘oh, by the way’ issue in meetings where you don’t actually raise something until the end as you’re going out, just so you can tell the press you did it.

“You have actually to make clear that you really are concerned about it, and it’s a concern in your parliament, it’s a concern among public opinion.”

Ministers have previously condemned the Chinese government for its treatment of Lai.

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