“Starmer’s visit to the White House was presented in the British press as some kind of a great achievement. In reality, Trump was quite scathing toward Starmer. When Starmer made some comment about the US and the UK always standing together, Trump more or less laughed at him and said, ‘Do you think you can take on the Russians on your own?’ … Starmer like the other European leaders are in an almost impossible dilemma, one that they probably never expected to face. And beneath the brave front, they really don’t know what to do.” So writes Keith Bennett in Global Times, 5 March 2025.

In an interview with Global Times on 3 March 2025, Keith Bennett discusses the issues facing China’s ‘two sessions’ event this week (the third session of the 14th National People’s Congress and the third session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference). He comments that China’s modernization path “offers a new option for other countries who want to speed up development while preserving independence.”

In a powerful assessment of the recent visit to China of Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Keith Bennett warns the government that its cowardly endorsement of the imperial arrogance and hubris of the anti-Corbyn turn in the Labour Party impedes the further progress of such engagement. He urges the labour and trade union movement to press for such limited and partial moves by the Labour government to engage with China to go much further.