Foreign Desk Report
LONDON: Chinese Ambassador to Britain Liu Xiaoming on Sunday warned that if the British government imposes sanctions on any individual in China over Hong Kong, China will make a “resolute response” to it.
He made the remarks in an exclusive live interview on BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, answering a question regarding China’s reaction if the Magnitsky act is used to ban individual Chinese people from British territory and reports that the extradition treaty between Hong Kong and Britain is going to be torn up. “We never believe in unilateral sanction,” Liu said. “We believe that the UN (United Nations) has the authority to impose sanctions.”
The senior diplomat said that the United States has sanctioned Chinese officials and China in turn sanctioned their senators and officials. “I do not want to see this tit-for-tat between China and the U.S. happen in China-UK relations,” he said. “I think the UK should have its own independent foreign policy rather than to dance to the tune of Americans, like what happened to Huawei.”
Talking about Britain’s recent drastic policy change regarding the Chinese tech giant, Liu called it “a very bad decision.”
“It’s a dark day for China-UK relations … you will miss the opportunity to be a leading country,” he said. He stressed that there is no hard or solid evidence to say Huawei is a risk to Britain. China does not want to politicize the economy, Liu added.Meanwhile, China firmly opposes unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States on other countries in accordance with its domestic laws, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Monday.
Wang Wenbin made the remarks after High Representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell on Friday expressed his concerns over the increasing use of sanctions, or the threat of sanctions, by the United States against European companies and interests.
“We have witnessed this developing trend in the cases of Iran, Cuba, the International Criminal Court and most recently the Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream projects,” Borrell said in a statement, adding the EU “considers the extraterritorial application of sanctions to be contrary to international law.”
China has taken note of the EU’s relevant statement, Wang told a press briefing, stressing that the U.S. side imposes unilateral sanctions and “long-arm jurisdiction” on other countries in accordance with domestic laws. “This has violated international laws and basic norms of international relations, damaged legitimate and lawful rights and interests of other countries, and gone against people’s will,” said the spokesperson. China supports all countries in the world to carry out normal international cooperation in accordance with prevailing international rules, Wang said.
