Furious Jeremy Hunt in bust-up with China as row over Hong Kong spirals into diplomatic crisis
FURIOUS Jeremy Hunt ordered the Chinese ambassador be given a dressing-down as a row over Hong Kong spiralled into a diplomatic crisis.
The Foreign Secretary got his top diplomat to summon Beijing’s man in London for a showdown over “unacceptable and inaccurate” allegations.
Sir Simon McDonald told Liu Xiaoming to end the public war of words.
It erupted after Tory leadership contender Mr Hunt threatened China with “serious consequences” if it broke a decades-old treaty to protect citizens’ rights in the former British colony.
And he warned that the storming of a parliament building by protestors should not spark “repression”.
China lodged an official protest with London. Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Mr Hunt “seems to be fantasizing in the faded glory of
British colonialism and obsessed with the bad habit of criticising and lecturing on other countries’ affairs condescendingly”. He added: “The UK at every turn considers itself as a guardian which is nothing but a delusion.”
Then in a rare press conference China’s UK ambassador said: “I think it is totally wrong for Jeremy Hunt to talk about freedom.
“This is not about freedom, it’s about breaking laws in Hong Kong. It’s very disappointing when senior officials of his calibre show support of these law-breaking people.”
He added the relationship between the UK and China had been “damaged” by Britain’s “interference”.
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Mr Hunt tweeted: “Good relations between countries are based on mutual respect and honouring the legally-binding agreements between them.” And he told Channel 4 News: “We’re very concerned at the reaction in China to comments that I made which were very straightforward — which is that we want to be the best of friends with China.
“We want to trade with China, but we expect all countries that we have internationally binding agreements with to honour those agreements.”
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