Boris Johnson says UK must 'continue to engage with China' and hints sanctions unlikely

'You have got to have a calibrated response. And we are going to be tough on some things – but also going to continue to engage'

The UK will “continue to engage” with China, Boris Johnson says, hinting there will be no US-style sanctions imposed on the regime.

The prime minister appeared to confirm that the government will suspend its extradition treaty with Hong Kong, amid a package of measures to be announced later.

But he said: “What we won’t do, as I say, is completely abandon our policy of engagement with China.

“China is a giant factor of geopolitics It’s going to be a giant factor in our lives, the lives of our children and our grandchildren

“You have got to have a calibrated response. And we are going to be tough on some things – but also going to continue to engage.”

Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, will make a statement to MPs, amid mounting concern about the impact of Beijing’s sweeping new national security law.

The US, Canada and Australia have already acted on their extradition laws in response to China’s crackdown in Hong Kong and amid growing tensions with Beijing.

And the UK has already promised that up to 3 million Hong Kong residents will be offered the chance to settle in this country, with a path to permanent citizenship.

But there is pressure from some Conservative backbenchers to go further, with Tobias Ellwood, the chair of the defence committee, arguing Britain has “been duped” for decades.

“I really want to see a reset of our entire foreign policy, bearing in mind that we are sliding towards a cold war, we can't do this on our own, we need to work with our allies,” he said.

“We turned a blind eye to what was going on with the Uighur population, we turned a blind eye to the uneven trade situation whereby Chinese companies could operate quite liberally within the UK and elsewhere, but our companies couldn't operate within China – and now I think it's time to say enough is enough.”

Speaking on a school visit, Mr Johnson said: “There is a balance here. I'm not going to be pushed into a position of becoming a knee-jerk Sinophobe on every issue, somebody who is automatically anti-China.”

He insisted: “We do have serious concerns. We have concerns about the treatment of the Uighur minority obviously, about the human rights abuses.

“We obviously have concerns about what's happening in Hong Kong and you will be hearing a bit later on from the foreign secretary about how we are going to change our extradition arrangements to reflect our concerns about what's happening with the security law in Hong Kong.”

There were reports at the weekend that the Chinese social media company TikTok had broken off talks to open a global headquarters in Britain.

Communist Party officials were also reported to have warned UK companies operating in China, including Jaguar Land Rover, BP and GlaxoSmithKline, that they could now face retaliation.

But Mr Raab has played down early action under the UK's new independent sanctions regime, saying that takes a long time to build a case against any alleged abusers.