Britain to relax visa rules for Chinese visitors
As the Chinese ambassador to London warned that tough immigration rules were eroding "British strength", Whitehall sources confirmed that reforms would be announced on Monday to encourage investors and other visitors from China.
The announcement will be made on the first day of a three-day visit by Li, in the second Anglo-Chinese summit in six months; normally these summits are held once a year. The government is rolling out the red carpet for Li, the first Chinese premier to visit since 2011, who will have tea with the Queen. The prime minister, who travelled to Beijing in December for the last Anglo-Chinese summit, has been working hard to repair relations with China after Beijing reacted angrily when he met the Dalai Lama in 2012. In an article for the Chinese weekly news magazine Caixin on the eve of his visit last December the prime minister pledged to act as China's strongest advocate in the west.
Ministers responded to Chinese criticisms over Britain's visa regime by making a series of changes last year. George Osborne announced during a visit to China last October that Britain would introduce a 24-hour "super priority" visa service for business leaders. A separate pilot scheme allows certain Chinese travel agents to apply for UK visas by submitting the application form used for the EU's Schengen visa.
But the Chinese ambassador to the UK made clear on Friday that the reforms did not go far enough. Speaking before Li's visit, Liu Xiaoming said: "I receive complaints from businesses based here. They have difficulties [rotating] their senior executives because of visa restrictions. That made their operations more difficult than they are in other European countries.
"So I think visa issues really erode British strength in terms of attracting more foreign businesses, attracting talented people. So I do wish more progress will be made on this issue."
The changes will apply to all Chinese visitors and are likely to address a key complaint - that visitors to the European Schengen area have to fill out a separate visa form to visit Britain. The changes announced by Osborne applied to a limited number of travel agents. In his briefing the ambassador was unsparing in his criticism, saying France and Germany had overtaken Britain in China's estimation and that Beijing was hoping a third runway would be built at Heathrow, and rebuking Britain for criticising its human rights record.
Liu said: "Before I came here, we used to say, when we talked about Europe: 'Britain, France and Germany.' But unfortunately many opportunities were missed in the past year or so - and we all know the reason behind it - people now start talking about 'Germany, France and Britain.'"
On Heathrow, the ambassador said: "We would like to see an increase in the capacity of Heathrow airport. I personally wrote a letter to senior members of the British cabinet, promoting Chinese airlines to get more slots. We were told Heathrow airport has already reached the maximum. We do expect, maybe even pray, that Heathrow airport will have a third runway."
The ambassador also said China had made a "demarche" - a diplomatic protest - over Foreign Office human rights reports as he said Britain had an imperfect record on the issue. He said: "Britain has some complaints about human rights in China. We also have some complaints about human rights here. I don't think pointing fingers is a good way to enhance mutual understanding."
Cameron and Li are expected to discuss the contentious area of cybersecurity after the prime minister challenged his Chinese counterpart to be more open last December. The EU and the US believe Beijing is responsible for the most aggressive online attacks. But the Chinese ambassador referred to the allegations in the files leaked by Edward Snowden to highlight the scale of spying by the US. He said: "I think the Snowden leakage is just the tip of [an] iceberg. We know from the Snowden report Americans spy not only on Chinese leaders but private citizens and Chinese business, the Guardian reports.
"We all know who is spying, who did the most spying. I also read with interest that the German government is going to [launch a] suit against the Americans for spying on their leader, Chancellor Merkel. This is a thing that we take very seriously. In fact it is one of the subjects of discussion between our leaders and also between the ministers of the two countries - how China and the UK can cooperate to ensure a more safe, healthy, sound cyberspace."