BEIJING: British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday called for expanding the “global strategic partnership” between the United Kingdom and China, at the start of a visit to the world’s second-largest economy focused on hashing out new trade arrangements once the UK leaves the European Union.
Meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, May referred to “a golden era” in relations between the two countries that London hopes will bring vast amounts of new job-creating investment from China’s fast-growing global firms.
“This is an auspicious time of the year to ... think about and consider how we can build further on that golden era and on the global strategic partnership that we have been working on between the UK and China,” May said.
Officials oversaw the signing of a raft of agreements covering trade — including the import of British food products to China — investment, education and other areas. More than 155,000 Chinese students now study in the UK, according to the British government.
Brexit appeared to figure prominently in the talks and May said that as Britain prepares to leave the EU “we are committed to deepening our strong and vital partnership” with China.
“And that relationship is indeed broad and deep and delivers benefits to both countries,” May said.
As Britain prepares to leave the EU, “we will become a country that is able to operate an independent trade policy and is able to sign free trade agreements around the rest of the world,” she said at a later question-and-answer session with Li.
Li said Brexit would not change the basic trading relationship.
“In EU-UK relations. We will have assessments and discussions in our trade relationship to take it forward,” Li said.
As she makes her China visit, May’s job is under threat from rivals within her Conservative Party, who are divided over whether to make a clean break with the EU or seek to keep the closest-possible economic relationship.
May insisted to reporters flying with her to China, “I’m not a quitter.”
She said there was “a long-term job to be done” by her government, according to the Press Association news agency.
“That job is about getting the best Brexit deal, it’s about ensuring that we take back control of our money, our laws, our borders, that we can sign trade deals around the rest of the world,” she said. “But it’s also about our domestic agenda.”
In her meeting with Li, May said the two countries, both permanent members of the UN Security Council, were also cooperating on North Korea and other security challenges. North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, she said, is “illegal, reckless and poses an unacceptable threat to international security.”
Li said they also discussed overcapacity in the steel industry, while May said an agreement had been reached to open China to imports of British beef this year. Business deals worth more than 9 billion pounds ($13 billion) would be announced before the end of the visit, May said.
May also expressed support for British involvement in the “Belt and Road” initiative, China’s mega-plan for trade and infrastructure links across Asia.
However, she said related projects needed to adhere to established global business practices. Beijing has been criticized for undermining those rules by agreeing to finance major infrastructure projects on condition they were awarded to Chinese companies without entertaining bids from competitors.
“We’ve discussed how the UK and China will continue to work together to identify how best we can cooperate on the Belt and Road initiative across the region and ensure it meets international standards,” May said.
“We will work together to encourage free and fair trade, ensure a transparent, rules-based multilateral trading system, and build an open global economy that works for all.”
May first visited the central industrial city of Wuhan on Wednesday before traveling to Beijing for talks with Li. On Thursday, she is scheduled to meet with President Xi Jinping, whose 2015 state visit to Britain helped propel what China refers to as the golden era in ties.
May is being accompanied on her visit by 50 British business leaders, including the chief executives of Jaguar Land Rover and drug firm AstraZeneca. She will also visit the financial hub of Shanghai before heading home Friday.
Bolstering ties with China became more urgent after Britain voted in 2016 to leave the EU, compelling it to forge new trade agreements outside of the 28-nation bloc.
British exports to China are up 60 percent since 2010, and China is expected to be one of the UK’s biggest foreign investors by 2020.
British finance minister Philip Hammond visited in December, pledging to promote London as a center for transactions in China’s yuan currency and announcing up to 25 billion pounds ($35 billion) in support for British businesses involved in the Belt and Road initiative.
But May appears more cautious about embracing Chinese investment than her predecessor, David Cameron. She annoyed Beijing in 2016 by temporarily delaying approval for a Chinese-backed nuclear power plant in southwestern England.
On China visit, Britain’s Theresa May focused on post-Brexit future
On China visit, Britain’s Theresa May focused on post-Brexit future
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UK seeks tougher term for father jailed over daughter’s murder
Lawyers for the Solicitor General’s office are at the same time seeking a stiffer, indefinite, sentence for Sharif
LONDON: The father of a British-Pakistani girl jailed for 40 years for her murder should have been given a whole life sentence from which he would never be released, a top government lawyer argued in a court appeal hearing Thursday.
Urfan Sharif was jailed in December for murdering 10-year-old Sara Sharif following years of torture.
Sharif, Sara’s stepmother Beinash Batool and the child’s uncle, Faisal Malik, are all appealing their sentences at the Court of Appeal in London.
Lawyers for the Solicitor General’s office are at the same time seeking a stiffer, indefinite, sentence for Sharif.
The murder trial last year caused waves of revulsion in the UK as the horrific abuse suffered by Sara was revealed.
There was anger too at how the bright, bubbly youngster had been failed by the authorities supposed to be in charge of her care.
Her body was found in bed at the family home in August 2023 covered in bites and bruises with broken bones and burns inflicted by an electric iron and boiling water.
Lawyer Naeem Majid Mian, representing Urfan Sharif, who was 43 when he was sentenced, argued in court on Thursday that although Sara’s treatment had been “horrendous” it did not merit his 40-year sentence.
“There was no intention to kill... and (the death) was not premeditated,” he added.
But documents submitted to the court on behalf of the solicitor general, one of the government’s top legal officers, called for Sharif to have an indefinite sentence imposed.
“It is submitted that the judge was wrong not to impose a whole life order on the offender,” said lawyer Tom Little in a text submission.
“This case does cross that... threshold” of rare cases that can justify a whole life term.
A lawyer for Sara’s stepmother, Carline Carberry, also told the court that her sentence of 33 years was too long and did not “justly reflect her role.”
Passing sentence in December after the trial, judge John Cavanagh said Sara had been subjected to “acts of extreme cruelty” but that Sharif and Batool had not shown “a shred of remorse.”
They had treated Sara as “worthless” and as “a skivvy,” because she was a girl. And because she was not Batool’s natural child, the stepmother had failed to protect her, he said.
“This poor child was battered with great force again and again.”
Malik, 29, who lived with the family was sentenced to 16 years after being found guilty of causing or allowing her death. He is also seeking to appeal his term.
A post-mortem examination of Sara’s body revealed she had 71 fresh injuries and at least 25 broken bones.
She had been beaten with a metal pole and cricket bat and “trussed up” with a “grotesque combination of parcel tape, a rope and a plastic bag” over her head.
A hole was cut in the bag so she could breathe and she was left to soil herself in nappies as she was prevented from using the bathroom.
Police called the case “one of the most difficult and distressing” that they had ever had to deal with.
The day after Sara died, the three adults fled their home in Woking, southwest of London, and flew to Pakistan with five other children.
Her father, a taxi-driver, left behind a handwritten note saying he had not meant to kill his daughter.
After a month on the run, the three returned to the UK and were arrested after landing. The five other children remain in Pakistan.
There has been anger in the UK that Sara’s brutal treatment was missed by social services after her father withdrew her from school four months before she died.
Sharif and his first wife, Olga, were well-known to social services.
In 2019, a judge decided to award the care of Sara and an older brother to Sharif, despite his history of abuse.
The school had three times raised the alarm about Sara’s case, notably after she arrived in class wearing a hijab, which she used to try to cover marks on her body which she refused to explain.
Since December, the government has moved to tighten up the rules on home-schooling.
Sara’s body was repatriated to Poland, where her mother is from, and where a funeral was organized.
Nominee for White House briefing role pulled over Gaza war stance
- Daniel Davis called US support for Israel’s campaign a ‘stain on our character’
- Senior Republicans opposed his appointment as deputy director for mission integration
LONDON: US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard decided against appointing a critic of Israel’s war in Gaza to a top government post over fears that doing so would anger members of President Donald Trump’s administration.
Daniel Davis, a senior fellow at the Defense Priorities think tank in Washington, was under consideration for the role of deputy director for mission integration, in charge of — among other things — putting together the president’s daily intelligence briefings.
However, a source within the administration told the New York Times that Gabbard reconsidered the appointment after Davis’s recommendation received criticism from several of her colleagues, Republican members of Congress, and other right-wing bodies and figures over his stance on Israel.
Davis wrote on social media in January that US support for the Gaza war was a “stain on our character as a nation, as a culture, that will not soon go away.”
On Wednesday, the Anti-Defamation League said his appointment would be “extremely dangerous.”
Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA operations officer, said Davis’s stance on the conflict ran contrary to mainstream Republican positions.
“His overt criticism of Israel and total opposition to any military action against Iran seems to run counter to current administration policy,” added Polymeropoulos, a fellow at the Atlantic Council.
The NYT reported that “allies” of Davis said there was “no hint of antisemitism or opposition to Israel in his work.”
Davis is known to be skeptical of US involvement in a number of overseas conflicts, in line with the position of Defense Priorities, which has called for less American involvement in the Middle East and an end to the war in Ukraine.
Davis has also been vocal about the suffering of Palestinians, calling plans to remove people from Gaza “ethnic cleansing.”
Gabbard is also a skeptic of US overseas intervention, and while she has said little about Gaza in recent months, Davis has been vocal on social media in supporting similar stances to her on conflicts such as Ukraine and the transition in Syria.
However, the Trump administration is known to be split on foreign policy directions the president should pursue, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Michael Waltz known to be more hawkish, especially on US policy toward Iran.
France and its partners will not yield to US threats, says French trade minister
- “France remains determined to respond with the European Commission and our partners,” Saint-Martin wrote on X
PARIS: France and its partners, such as the European Union, will not yield to US tariff threats and France will protect its industries, said French trade minister Laurent Saint Martin on Thursday.
“Donald Trump is launching the escalation in the trade war he chose to start. France remains determined to respond with the European Commission and our partners,” Saint-Martin wrote on X.
US President Donald Trump said earlier that the US will put 200 percent tariff on all wines and other alcoholic products if the EU does not remove tariff on whiskey.
Armenia says peace deal with Azerbaijan ‘ready for signing’
- The Armenian foreign ministry said “negotiations on the draft agreement have been concluded“
YEREVAN: Armenia on Thursday confirmed reports from Azerbaijan that the text of a peace treaty between the arch-foe Caucasus neighbors has been agreed upon and is ready for signing.
“Armenia accepts Azerbaijan’s proposals regarding the two previously unresolved articles of the draft” peace agreement, the Armenian foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that “negotiations on the draft agreement have been concluded” and “the Peace Agreement is ready for signing.”
No ceasefire reply means Moscow wants to fight on: Zelensky
- Russia says ceasefire would be nothing more than a temporary breather for the Ukrainian military
Kyiv, Ukraine/Moscow: President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday the fact there was no “meaningful” response from Moscow to a 30-day ceasefire proposal from the United States meant the Kremlin wants to keep fighting in Ukraine.
“Regrettably, for more than a day already, the world has yet to hear a meaningful response from Russia to the proposals made. This once again demonstrates that Russia seeks to prolong the war and postpone peace for as long as possible. We hope that US pressure will be sufficient to compel Russia to end the war,” Zelensky said in a statement on social media.
Earlier a top Kremlin aide on Thursday criticized the US-Ukrainian proposal for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, saying it would just be a "breather" for the Ukrainian military.
"It would be nothing more than a temporary breather for the Ukrainian military," Yuri Ushakov told state media after speaking by phone to US national security advisor Mike Waltz.
He said President Vladimir Putin would “probably make more specific and substantive assessments” on Thursday.
Ushakov also said that Russia was aiming for a "long-term peaceful solution" that would secure Russia’s “legitimate interests”.
“That is what we are striving for,” he said.
“Any steps that imitate peaceful action are I believe not needed by anyone in the current situation,” he said.
US negotiators travelled to Russia on Thursday to present their plan for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, as Washington pushed Moscow for an "unconditional" pause to the three-year conflict.
