LONDON: China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi is due to visit Britain on Thursday to hold talks with his British counterpart David Lammy in a sign that relations between the countries are normalizing after years of tensions.
Issues to be discussed include international security and the war in Ukraine, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesman told reporters.
Lammy and Wang will revive the UK-China Strategic Dialogue, a forum last held in 2018 to discuss bilateral issues.
That dialogue was paused during the COVID-19 pandemic and after Britain restricted some Chinese investment on worries over national security and over a crackdown on freedoms in Hong Kong.
The Labour government, in power in Britain since July, has made improving ties with China one of its main foreign policy goals after a period under successive Conservative governments when relations plunged to their lowest level in decades.
British finance minister Rachel Reeves visited China last month in a bid to revive economic and financial talks that had been frozen since 2019.
Wang’s visit will come two days after the start of an inquiry ordered by British government into China’s stalled plans to build a large embassy in London.
The Chinese government purchased Royal Mint Court, a historic site near the Tower of London, in 2018 but had its requests for planning permission to build the new embassy there rejected by the local council.
The stalled project had been a source of diplomatic tension between the two countries.
Lammy and interior minister, Yvette Cooper, recently come out in support of the plan, which is opposed by local politicians and residents.
China’s foreign minister to visit Britain on Thursday for talks
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China’s foreign minister to visit Britain on Thursday for talks
- Wang Yi to hold talks with his British counterpart David Lammy
- Issues to be discussed include international security and the war in Ukraine
Senegal to suspend all extraditions to France
- A French appeals court in late November requested details from Dakar regarding Senegal’s request to extradite media magnate and government critic Madiambal Diagne
DAKAR: Senegal has “decided to suspend” all extraditions to France, Dakar’s justice minister said, accusing Paris of refusing to hand over two Senegalese citizens to the West African country.
The row comes after the French courts postponed a decision last month on whether to return a Senegalese press baron critical of the Senegalese government, and as Dakar seeks the extradition of a businessman under investigation for financial irregularities.
“We have two Senegalese nationals in France. France, up to now, has not returned them to Senegal, which has provided all the justifications and continues to request their extradition,” Justice Minister Yassine Fall told parliament, without specifying who the two people were.
As a result of France’s non-cooperation, Senegal will refuse to extradite 12 people wanted by France “until France responds favorably to what we have requested,” Fall said.
“If these people are guilty of crimes, we arrest them. We do not do as France does. We do not let them remain free,” the minister added.
A French appeals court in late November requested details from Dakar regarding Senegal’s request to extradite media magnate and government critic Madiambal Diagne, who fled to France in late September and is subject to a Senegalese arrest warrant for alleged financial irregularities.
Two journalists were arrested in Senegal in October after conducting separate interviews with Diagne, sparking an outcry among press groups and the political class, which called the detentions a severe attack on freedom of speech. Both were freed within the week.
Since toppling former President Macky Sall in 2024, considered one of France’s closest allies in West Africa, the Senegalese government has adopted a more critical stance toward Paris, without completely turning its back on the country’s former colonial ruler.
