27 Apr China sending a message to the UK by sending Hong Kong crackdown leader to coronation
CHINA’S president is sending a message to the UK by snubbing an invitation to the King’s coronation and sending his deputy, according to Royal commentator Michael Cole.
He was speaking after it emerged that Xi Jinping will send his vice-president Hang Zhen, who has been accused of breaking a treaty by cracking down on protesters in Hong Kong.
Mr Cole told GB News: “Very little is done by accident, everything is very calculated. They play the long game, so I think this is probably a signal.
“Of course, it’s still very, very current with many people still wanting to leave the ex-colony. It’s very controversial.
“The fact that the demonstrations have died down in the streets doesn’t mean to say that the anger, and the hurt and the anxiety of those people who live in Hong Kong about their future has.”
In a discussion with Andrew Pierce and Bev Turner, he continued: “The King has got plenty of form on this. When he was Prince of Wales, he memorably described the Chinese leadership as ‘ghastly old waxworks.’
“And when President Xi came here, he went AWOL. He didn’t turn up at the big events that were laid on in his honour while he was here. I covered the Queen’s historic visit state visit to China and so I know a little bit about what goes on and certainly, when he was Prince of Wales anyway, the King was very concerned about Tibet.
“He had a couple of meetings at least with [Tibet’s spiritual leader] the Dalai Lama. So, there is all that history behind us and we’re seeing it come to fruition, but politics comes into it at this stage, personal preferences have to go and take a back pew, so to speak, at Westminster Abbey.”
Mr Cole added: “The King is guided at all times by by the government of the day in this, he reigns but they rule, Parliament is sovereign, and the executive is in charge.
“That means the Prime Minister and his ministers, senior ministers, the Foreign Secretary, so the King has got no say in this. He has had influence elsewhere in the guest list, of course, where it was right and proper, but as a country we have to take this all into account.
“China may not be our best friend at the moment, but it’s neither is it our enemy, and this is perhaps an unfortunate casting, this person who’s coming who’s done so much to the detriment of a wonderful place that used to be called Hong Kong, so maybe he’s the wrong man to come but that’s their decision.”
