A delegation of Chinese officials has reportedly been barred from visiting the historic hall in Parliament where Queen Elizabeth II is lying in state, as geopolitics cast a shadow over the solemn pageantry surrounding the monarch’s death. The Chinese ambassador to the UK was banned from Parliament for a year after Beijing sanctioned seven British legislators last year for speaking out against China’s treatment of its Uighur minority in the far-west Xinjiang region. The office of House of Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle declined to comment Friday on the report in Politico of the Chinese delegation being barred from visiting the queen's coffin at the Houses of Parliament.
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said she had not seen the report, but said that as host of the queen's funeral, the UK should "follow the diplomatic protocols and proper manners to receive guests," the AP reports. A Chinese delegation including Wang Qishan, the country's vice president, is expected to attend the queen's funeral on Monday, which is in Westminster Abbey rather than in Parliament. The sanctioned British legislators wrote this week to officials expressing concerns that the Chinese government has been invited to the state funeral.
Conservative lawmaker Tim Loughton told the BBC that the invitation to China should be rescinded, citing the country’s human rights abuses and treatment of Uighurs. "You cannot have a Golden Age, normal relations, with a country that has now been exposed as committing the sorts of atrocities it has, not least the genocide against the Uighurs, the oppression going on in Tibet for the last 60, 70 years, and now what we see going on in Hong Kong as well," he said. (More Queen Elizabeth II stories.)
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