The controversial Chinese communist ambassador to the United Kingdom, Liu Xiaoming, will stand down from his position, just a few months after his Twitter account ‘liked’ a foot fetish pornographic video.
Liu Xiaoming will be replaced as the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ambassador to Great Britain with foreign vice-minister Zheng Zeguang, who was notably tipped as an American affairs specialist by the South China Morning Post.
Mr Liu, 64, has served as the ambassador to the UK since 2010, however, rose to international attention this year with two notable controversies.
In September, Ambassador Liu’s Twitter account liked a post from a Chinese account, whose username translated roughly to “show off wife daily”.
The post read in Chinese: “lucky quality single guy, warm up first” and showed a pornographic video of a woman performing a footjob.
The Chinese embassy in London called for Twitter to investigate, claiming that the ambassador’s account was hacked.
“Some anti-China elements viciously attacked Ambassador Liu Xiaoming’s Twitter account and employed despicable methods to deceive the public,” a statement posted on the embassy’s website said.
China doubled down on its defence of the ambassador, with an article from the state-run communist mouthpiece, the Global Times, calling for a “major cyber governance revolution” in response to the incident.
Breitbart News’ John Heyward remarked: “It takes a good deal of cheek for a state-managed propaganda organ to complain about the freedom of information, or for the buzzing beehive of cyber-espionage in China to complain about anyone else corrupting the Internet.”
Mr Liu also grabbed international attention in July of this year after a BBC interview with the communist envoy went viral worldwide. While speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, the ambassador denied that the Beijing dictatorship is running concentration camps in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang.
Amazingly, when shown footage purporting to show shaven-headed Uyghur Muslims being loaded onto trains, Mr Liu refused to fully acknowlege the footage.
“I cannot see, uh, you know, this, this a view [sic] — this is not the first time you show me [this],” the ambassador said.
Liu went on to confusingly say: “You know, Xinjiang is regarded as the most beautiful place in Xinjiang,” before attempting to claim that the footage may have been fabricated by foreign intelligence services, or that it might just be footage a standard prison transfer.
“Let me tell you this, the so-called Western intelligence keep making up this false accusation against China,” he said.
It is estimated that between one and three million people in the Xinjiang region are interned in concentration camps, with widespread reports of women being subject to sterilisation and rape, as well as claims of torture, and organ harvesting committed by the communist state.
In response to Mr Liu’s departure, Hong Kong Watch founder Benedict Rogers said: “I don’t think the hymn ‘And did those feet in ancient time walk upon England’s mountains green’ will be sung in memory of him,” before adding: “Good riddance.”
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here: @KurtZindulka
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