Chinese ambassador to UK barred from British parliament

Zheng Zeguang, the new Chinese ambassador to the UK, has been barred from parliament by the Speakers in the Commons and Lords after the imposition of sanctions on British MPs by Beijing, Report informs referring to The Guardian.

The new ambassador was due to attend a meeting of the broadly pro-Chinese all-party group on China, but after a letter from MPs who were subjected to sanctions by China, including the former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith, the Commons Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, has said the meeting is not appropriate.

A similar decision has been endorsed by the Lords Speaker, John McFall.

Hoyle said he was not banning the Chinese ambassador permanently, but only while the sanctions existed. China says it imposed sanctions on MPs and academics in March after the UK government imposed sanctions on Chinese officials that it had identified as responsible for suppressing the rights of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang.

The Chinese embassy in London described the postponement of the meeting as a “despicable and cowardly” act. In a statement, the embassy said the sanctions imposed by the Chinese side in March “are beyond reproach because they are justified responses to the unilateral sanctions imposed by the British side on relevant Chinese individuals and entities based on disinformation and under the pretext of so-called human rights abuse in Xinjiang.