Report: U.K. Bans Chinese Communists from Visiting Queen Elizabeth Lying in State

Multiple reports, originating in Politico, indicated on Friday that the British House of Commons prevented a delegation representing the Chinese Communist Party from entering Westminster Hall to visit Queen Elizabeth II lying in state.

The British government formally invited Chinese representatives to the queen’s funeral — and, notably, did not invite the Taiwanese government to attend the event, consistent with Beijing’s demands for diplomatic ties — but the bilateral relationship has deteriorated significantly in light of London recognizing the Uyghur genocide under dictator Xi Jinping as a genocide last year. Historically, Britain’s presence in Hong Kong has long upset Chinese communists and, conversely, British politicians and human rights activists have denounced the violent crackdown on pro-democracy activists in the city following millions-strong protests against communism in 2019.

Under China’s illegal “national security” provisions over Hong Kong, residents have been arrested for waving British flags and supporting British soccer clubs.

Queen Elizabeth’s funeral is expected to be the most-watched event in the history of television. The viewing currently underway at Westminster, meanwhile, is believed to have attracted thousands of people. The line of subjects waiting to honor Britain’s longest-serving monarch stretched nearly five miles as of Thursday, resulting in many expected to wait nearly a day to participate in the event.

Reports of Chinese government officials being prevented from visiting the queen followed loud protests from British members of Parliament and human rights advocates who noted that China had sanctioned several of them for objecting to its human rights atrocities and had become a hostile state to Britain.

The South China Morning Post, citing Politico, reported on Friday that an anonymous source had told the American publication that House Speaker Lindsay Hoyle had personally intervened to decline a Chinese regime request to visit the queen.

“A Commons spokesman declined to comment on Friday, saying they do not discuss ‘security matters.’ Britain’s Foreign Office did not respond to request for comment on Friday,” the Morning Post, based in formerly British Hong Kong, noted.

The U.K. Times reported that, independent of the visit, Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan was expected to attend Queen Elizabeth’s funeral on Monday. That event, however, is the only one that Beijing has received a formal invitation to participate in.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry offered no further clarity on Friday. Spokeswoman Mao Ning claimed to have not seen the reports of the snub.

“I haven’t seen the report you mentioned. I want to point out that the state funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is an important activity of the UK,” Mao said in response to a question on the report. “Foreign delegations attend the activity at the invitation of the UK side to show respect to the late Queen and the importance they attach to the UK. As the host, the UK side is certainly familiar with diplomatic protocols and proper manners of receiving guests.”

Mao also alleged that the Communist Party had not yet accepted its invite to the funeral on Monday: “China is considering sending a high-level delegation to the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. We will release information in due course.”

Prior to the reports of Chinese officials being prevented from visiting the queen, which do not necessarily preclude a Chinese presence at the funeral, British conservatives and human rights activists called for London to bar the communists from participating in the historic affair.

“Given that Myanmar, Belarus, and Russia have, absolutely rightly, been banned, it is absurd to invite China, which is alongside them as one of the worst violators of human rights in the world and which poses perhaps the biggest threat to our freedoms around the world,” Benedict Rogers, founder of Hong Kong Watch and the author of the upcoming book The China Nexus, told Breitbart London on Friday.

“As someone who has spent countless hours hearing first-hand the testimonies from the survivors of the Uyghur genocide,” he continued, “[the] atrocities in Tibet, the persecution of Christians, forced organ harvesting, the threats to Taiwan, the crackdown on civil society and dissent in China itself, and the total dismantling of Hong Kong’s freedoms, and as someone who has friends in jail in Hong Kong today, I do not want to see Xi Jinping or any representative of his brutal, criminal, inhumane regime present at the funeral of my Queen.”

As Rogers mentioned, the governments of Burma, Belarus, and Russia did not receive formal invites to the funeral. Neither did Russia’s proxy dictator Bashar al-Assad in Syria, its close ally Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, or the Taliban terrorist government of Afghanistan. London invited an ambassadorial representative of North Korea, but not dictator Kim Jong-un, to attend. Nicaragua and Iran received similar “ambassadorial” invites.

Every country failing to receive an invitation, or receiving limited version of one, is allied with China.

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