Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on February 10, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 26, 2026
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China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi visits the UK to discuss international security and revive the UK-China Strategic Dialogue.
LONDON (Reuters) - 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 normalising 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.
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
The main topic is the visit of China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi to the UK to discuss bilateral relations and international security.
The dialogue is significant as it aims to improve relations and address bilateral issues after a pause due to tensions and the pandemic.
Key issues include international security, the war in Ukraine, and the stalled Chinese embassy project in London.
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