Beijing summons UK envoy Caroline Wilson over ‘fake news’

Beijing has delivered a public dressing down to the British ambassador for supporting the role of a free press.

Beijing delivered a public dressing down to the British ambassador yesterday in protest at an article she posted on Chinese social media supporting the role of a free press.

The Foreign Ministry summoned Dame Caroline Wilson to make “stern representations” and made a statement accusing her of arrogance, double standards, bias and manipulation.

The ministry said she had strayed beyond her ambassadorial brief and demanded that she “reflect” on her role. Wilson responded by reposting her article last night.

The argument escalates a wider row between Beijing and London – and other western countries – over the role of a free press. It also serves to underline Chinese sensitivities over the reporting of Beijing’s crackdown on the Uighur minority and the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

Wilson, 50, posted her article, “Do foreign media hate China?”, last week on WeChat, China’s non-encrypted version of WhatsApp, in an apparent effort to explain the role of the free press in democratic societies. WeChat banned users from sharing the post.

A critical media plays a positive role as watchdog of government action and protecting those without a voice. My article in Mandarin on why international media criticism of Chinese authorities is not China hating #defendmediafreedomhttps://t.co/AgkynfJM36@ukinchina

— Caroline Wilson (@CWilson_FCDO) March 2, 2021

The Foreign Ministry said: “As the top envoy of the UK to China, she purposely confused libel with news supervision by crying foul for some foreign media being sanctioned over fake news and untrue reports. She ignores the fact that the foreign side has cracked down on Chinese media.

“The article is full of the arrogance of being the master and ideological bias. It confuses the white with the black, [and] manipulates double standards.

“This act is severely out of line of her diplomatic role and the duties of its diplomatic office. The Chinese side demands Ms Wilson deeply reflects on her own duties, positions herself correctly and does more things that benefit the development of bilateral relations.”

In her article, Wilson used examples of the British press criticising their home government as evidence of their role as a watchdog. This included a report on the scandal over MPs’ expenses, including a photograph of Sir Peter Viggers’s pounds 1,600 floating duck house. Wilson noted that “unlike foreign media, Chinese media can only make critical reports under conditions permitted by the government”.

Wilson responded last night with a tweet. “I stand by my article,” she posted, along with a link to the Chinese text. She added: “No doubt the outgoing Chinese ambassador to the UK stands by the 170+ pieces he was free to place in mainstream British media.”

I stand by my article. No doubt the outgoing Chinese Ambassador to the UK stands by the 170+ pieces he was free to place in mainstream British media. https://t.co/AgkynfJM36

— Caroline Wilson (@CWilson_FCDO) March 9, 2021

Liu Xiaoming, China’s ambassador to London for 11 years, returned to Beijing in January. He became well known for the fiery press conferences he held at the Chinese embassy in Belgravia, upbraiding the British press for a lack of “social responsibility” for reporting unrest in Hong Kong. His profile rose when he appeared on the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show and was confronted with drone video of hundreds of shaven-headed, blindfolded and shackled Uighurs kneeling at a railway station awaiting deportation. Liu struggled to explain the video, suggesting it could be a routine “transfer of prisoners”.

China's ambassador to Britain Liu Xiaoming speaks to members of the media. Picture: AFP.

He held a Zoom farewell reception in late January with more than 400 guests and wrote a farewell article published in The Daily Telegraph entitled “I will never forget my 11 years in the UK”. In it, he acknowledged that the Sino-British relationship had “not always been smooth sailing” but called for mutual respect. “The friendship between the people of China and the UK has deepened,” he wrote. “The beautiful voices of the children from the Confucius Classroom choir at Millburn Primary School in Northern Ireland singing Let the World be Full of Love is a memory I will cherish.”

Liu is to be replaced in London by Zheng Zeguang, a vice-minister for foreign affairs in Beijing. Zheng, who studied law at Cardiff University, previously specialised in US-Chinese relations and led the fightback against Donald Trump’s efforts to blame China for inflicting coronavirus on the world.

He has also seen an American hand in the protests in Hong Kong and will start amid tensions over the looming arrival of tens of thousands of British National Overseas passport holders, which Beijing decries as interference.

Wilson, who speaks Mandarin and Cantonese in addition to French, German and Russian, is best known in Britain for her tactful handling of Boris Johnson in the BBC documentary Inside the Foreign Office.

The Times