China’s
ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming, earlier had criticised the British
government of “taking the wrong side” on Hong Kong, accusing Britain of
interfering with Hong Kong’s internal affairs which would be detrimental
to Sino-British relations. This resulted in the ambassador being
summoned to the Foreign Office, saying that Liu’s words were
unacceptable.
During an interview with the BBC on Sunday (7th
July), Liu Xiaoming stated that China is not interested in a diplomatic
war with Britain, but the language used by some British politicians on
the issue of Hong Kong was “Cold War mentality language”.
Liu
reiterated that Hong Kong had received no instructions or orders from
Beijing to introduce the bill, that the amendment was initiated by the
Hong Kong government to rectify legal loopholes. He also stressed that
China always been fully committed to the principle of “one country, two
systems”, that it was Britain that was interfering in Hong Kong’s
internal affairs and trying to “obstruct the legal process”.
He
also pointed out that Huawei, which is responsible for laying out the 5G
network in Britain, will certainly not be passing information back to
the government in Beijing and stressed that Huawei will not be
committing espionage in Britain as everyone is here for a win-win
cooperation; if the British government rejects Huawei then it will miss
enormous opportunities.