The Chinese carmaker Chery is launching a fourth brand in the UK, continuing a push into the British market where it has rapidly become a major player. The state-owned company said on Wednesday it would sell cars under the Lepas brand, which is developing battery and hybrid SUVs aimed at younger families, mainly in the European market. The decision to add a fourth brand in the UK underlines Chery’s efforts to win market share. The Lepas cars will be built initially in China and imported to the UK, which does…
Tag: UK news
Jimmy Lai’s son says UK government did not do enough to help him on China visit
The British son of the jailed Hong Kong media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai has criticised the UK government for failing to place conditions on his father’s release during the prime minister’s visit to China last week. Speaking at a parliamentary hearing on Tuesday, Sebastien Lai said his father’s incarceration was not only a humanitarian and national security issue, but an issue “where our values are being locked up” along with him. Sebastien Lai says time is running out for his father, who is in poor health. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian The…
Mandelson’s conduct with Epstein ‘far below standard expected’, says minister as Brown calls for inquiry into ‘shocking’ leak – UK politics live
From 2h ago Mandelson’s conduct with Epstein ‘unequivocally wrong’ and ‘far below standard expected of any minister’, Jones says Jones says Jeffrey Epstein was “a despicable criminal who committed disgusting crimes and destroyed the lives of countless women and girls”. He goes on: On Friday, the Department of Justice in the United States released around 3 million pages from the case files relating to Jeffrey Epstein. It is increasingly clear that his awful crimes involved and were facilitated by many, often powerful people, both by actively participating in the crimes…
China is leading the charge to nuclear Armageddon – and Starmer barely noticed | Simon Tisdall
Keir Starmer’s tentative pivot to the Dragon Throne has played well in Beijing, though not in Trumpland. That’s partly because, like other needy western leaders, Britain’s prime minister did not dwell on awkward subjects such as human rights abuses, the Jimmy Lai travesty, spying and Taiwan. But in talks with President Xi Jinping, one vital issue was avoided altogether and should not have been: China’s dangerous, unexplained, secretive and rapid buildup of nuclear weapons. More than the climate crisis, global hunger, Kaiser Trump’s Prussian militarism and the ever prevalent threat…
Alarm raised over Chinese CCTV cameras guarding ‘symbol of democracy’ Magna Carta
Security cameras guarding Magna Carta are provided by a Chinese CCTV company whose technology has allegedly aided the Uyghur “genocide” and been exploited by Russia during the invasion of Ukraine, it has emerged. In letters seen by the Guardian, campaigners called on Salisbury Cathedral, which houses one of four surviving copies of the “powerful symbol of social justice”, to rip out cameras made by Dahua Technology, based in the Chinese city of Hangzhou. They have also written to the authorities responsible for the Parthenon temple in Greece, which is monitored…
Starmer hopes his China trip will begin the thaw after recent ice age
The last British prime minister to visit China was Theresa May in 2018. Before the visit, she and her team were advised to get dressed under the covers because of the risk of hidden cameras having been placed in their hotel rooms to record compromising material. Keir Starmer, in Beijing this week, was more sanguine about his privacy, even though the security risks have, if anything, increased since the former Tory prime minister was in town. China has been accused of spying on parliament, has sanctioned British MPs and peers,…
Chinese car firm Chery to open European base in Liverpool
Chinese carmaker Chery is to open a research and development headquarters in Liverpool, in a move that could pave the way for a deal for the British manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover to build its cars. State-owned Chery’s commercial vehicle arm will base the headquarters for its European operations on Merseyside, including research, engineering, and commercial functions. Chery has already made a mark in the UK car market through its Omoda and Jaecoo brands, and it is launching its eponymous brand with an advertising campaign featuring former England footballer Peter Crouch.…
Who are the UK MPs and peers who had sanctions imposed on them by China?
Tom Tugendhat MP for Tonbridge; former security minister Tugendhat was first elected in 2015. The son of a high court judge, Tugendhat served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and later became a military assistant to the chief of the defence staff. He chaired the foreign affairs select committee between 2017 and 2022. After the sanctions were announced, he said it was a “direct assault on British democracy and an attempt to silence the British people”. Iain Duncan Smith MP for Chingford and Woodford Green; former work and pensions secretary Duncan Smith,…
China has lifted sanctions from six serving British MPs and peers, Starmer says
China has lifted the sanctions it imposed on serving British MPs and peers in a significant sign of warming relations after Keir Starmer travelled to Beijing for landmark talks with Xi Jinping. Nine UK citizens were banned from China in 2021, including five Conservative MPs and two members of the House of Lords, targeted for highlighting human rights violations against the Muslim Uyghur community. However, it is unclear whether an academic, a barrister, and a former Tory MP who stepped down from parliament at the last election, who were also…
Trump warns UK against doing business with China after Starmer visits Beijing – UK politics live
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