Chinese diplomat visits UK, restarts dialogue

Washington: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived in Britain Thursday for an official visit, marking the restart of a diplomatic dialogue mechanism that has been paused for nearly seven years.

Wang had talks with Britain’s foreign minister and national security adviser and briefly met with Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

The top Chinese diplomat’s visit restarts the U.K.-China Strategic Dialogue, which has been frozen since 2018 over human rights abuses in Hong Kong, spying allegations and China’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said that discussions would involve “areas of bilateral economic cooperation” and security issues such as the war in Ukraine.

“We will also discuss issues where the U.K. and China do not always see eye to eye, and in some cases, the U.K. does have significant concerns,” Lammy said.

In the meetings, Wang said that cooperation was increasingly urgent, given the current state of global affairs.

“Under the current situation, it is more important than before for China and the U.K. to demonstrate their responsibilities as major countries, practice multilateralism, support free trade, advocate win-win cooperation, and promote political solutions to hot spot issues, so we can jointly work for the peace and stability of the world,” Wang said through an interpreter.

“It is important that we use channels such as this for robust but constructive discussion, as we are both members of the U.N. Security Council and we’ll be better able to understand each other, and each other’s perspectives,” Wang added.

Wang’s visit is another step in the new British labor government’s effort to improve its relations with China.

Lammy visited China in October, and British Treasury chief Rachel Reeves traveled to Beijing in January to reopen talks of investment between the countries.

As British diplomats met with Wang, a small group of demonstrators gathered outside the Chinese Embassy to protest his arrival and Chinese human rights violations.

“We will take this opportunity to call on China, to hope that China can have freedom of speech, human rights and can end its dictatorship rule,” said Cheng Xiaodan, a Chinese immigrant living in England.

Members of the crowd held small paper signs with images of Wang and banners that read “Long live freedom. Long live human rights.”

An earlier version of this story stated that this was Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s first visit to the U.K. That is incorrect.