Rachel Reeves is expected to raise Russia’s war in Ukraine and issues of human rights in Hong Kong during her trip to China. The Chancellor is visiting Beijing for the first UK-China economic and financial dialogue since 2019,

More than 150,000 Hong Kongers have come to the UK since 2020 after China launched a crackdown under its national security law

MPs and peers pen letter to Rachel Reeves urging her to raise plight of detained political prisoners during China trip.

Pressure is mounting on Rachel Reeves as the Chancellor arrived in China after a week when government borrowing hit an almost 30-year high. Bond market turmoil has seen the pound sink to a 14-month low against the dollar amid fears Reeves may have to rip up her own fiscal rules.

RACHEL Reeves has vowed to “make the UK better off” on her visit to China amid fury over a major debt crisis and a plummeting economy at home. The under-siege Chancellor met Chinese

She went on: “Choosing not to engage with China is therefore no choice at all. The UK must engage confidently with China in areas of trade that benefit the UK’s national interest and be equally confident in expressing our real economic and trade concerns to the Chinese, including market access and wider market-distorting practices.”

Exclusive: Former cabinet minister Sir Iain Duncan Smith said that the chancellor’s trip to Beijing was a desperate move ‘because she has trashed the economy’

Ms Reeves hailed the trip as a ‘significant milestone’ in Labour’s re-engagement with China, saying she had agreed deals worth £600 million over the next five years

Rachel Reeves has vowed to stand firmly behind her October Budget ... We must speak often and candidly with China where we disagree, including on democratic values and freedoms, Hong Kong, and support for Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine.”

The Treasury said a stable relationship with China would support economic growth - but critics said the chancellor should have stayed at home to address the market turmoil.

Rachel Reeves's 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.

Increases in the Government’s borrowing costs have sparked concern that the Chancellor will be unable to meet her debt and spending targets, requiring either tax rises or deeper spending cuts when she delivers a fiscal statement at the end of March.