Chinese Vice-President Wang Qishan attends Queen Elizabeth’s lying in state
- House of Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle reportedly barred a delegation of Chinese officials, including its ambassador, from visiting the vigil
- Commons officials had left open the possibility Wang Qishan could visit as a representative of a head of state invited to the funeral
Chinese Vice-President Wang Qishan visited the lying in state of Queen Elizabeth on Sunday evening two days after Parliament officials reportedly barred a Chinese delegation from attending the vigil.
House of Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle rejected a request by a delegation of Chinese officials, including its ambassador to Britain, to attend the lying in state, Politico reported on Friday.
Zheng Zeguang, China’s ambassador to Britain, was barred from attending Parliament last year after Beijing sanctioned several British lawmakers who have been outspoken about purported human rights abuses against ethnic Muslim Uygurs in the Western region of Xinjiang.
However, Commons officials had left open the possibility late Friday that Wang would still be allowed to attend the vigil, saying any heads of state or their representatives invited to attend the state funeral on Monday also were invited to attend the lying in state.
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“The sanction against those accredited officials remains in place and will remain so,” Hoyle said on BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. “There is an easy answer, lift the sanctions, we can look to see whether we should have a reception in Parliament. But this will not happen at the moment.”