British finance minister Rachel Reeves will try to build "common ground on trade and investment" during a trip to China this weekend, the Treasury said on Saturday, in the latest move by the government to thaw ties with Beijing.

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.”

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves will become the most senior British official to visit Beijing in 7 years this weekend as she embarks on a mission to deepen economic ties with China. The trip takes place with UK markets in a state of upheaval,

Aging populations, as Japan taught us, are inherently deflationary. Folks in their 70s don’t spend the way 20-somethings do. With the unemployment rate for Chinese between 16 and 24 stuck above 17% —or higher given the vagaries of Beijing’s data—what good will subsidies and rebates do?

China's central bank suspended treasury bond purchases on Friday, briefly lifting yields and spurring speculation it is stepping up defence of the yuan currency which has been sliding since the election of Donald Trump as U.