British Foreign Minister David Lammy calls for ‘more diplomacy’ with China
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Mr David Lammy, Britain’s foreign minister, said he would aim to meet his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi again in 2025.
PHOTO: AFP
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SHANGHAI – British foreign minister David Lammy on Oct 19 called for a resumption of dialogue between London and Beijing, urging the two sides to engage in “more diplomacy” as he concluded a rare diplomatic visit to China.
China and Britain are seeking to reset ties frayed in recent years by Beijing’s security crackdown in Hong Kong and human rights concerns including in its troubled Xinjiang region.
The new Labour government in London is under pressure to raise human rights abuses with China but also maintain ties with a major trading partner.
Mr Lammy met with Chinese officials including his counterpart Wang Yi
“UK policy in the past under the last government was not consistent and what I’m hearing is that we need consistency in our approach,” he told reporters on Oct 19.
Mr Lammy said he pressed his Chinese hosts on issues including Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Taiwan, where Britain is “worried about some of the tensions that we see in the Taiwan Strait, because that is not in the interests of the global community”.
“There are values, areas where the UK government and our cultural approach will be different to China’s and there are important areas of national security where we will always put the UK’s national interests first,” Mr Lammy said.
But he said there were also “areas where we can cooperate and collaborate with the Chinese”.
“I believe what you need is more diplomacy, not less. That’s why it’s so important to be here as a UK foreign secretary and to keep coming back,” Mr Lammy said, adding that he would aim to meet Mr Wang again in 2025. AFP
