CHANCELLOR Philip Hammond will not visit China this weekend after a Tory colleague threatened to deploy warships in the Pacific.
The Chancellor was expected to meet Chinese vice premier Hu Chunhua, but Treasury sources said the trip was never confirmed amid reports that Beijing pulled out of trade talks.
It follows reports in the Sun that Hu scrapped the plans hours after Defence Secretary Williamson delivered what one UK official told the Financial Times was an “idiotic” speech.
Speaking earlier this week, Williamson confirmed HMS Queen Elizabeth's first operational mission will take place in the Pacific region, adding that the UK was prepared to use “lethal” force against nations which “flout international law”.
The remarks were generally interpreted as a threat to China, which has been involved in a dispute over navigation rights and territorial claims in the South China Sea.
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China had reportedly been expected to lift its bans on British poultry and cosmetics not tested on animals, which could have opened up access to markets worth around £10 billion over five years.
But a Treasury spokeswoman said: "The Chancellor is not travelling to China at this time. No trip was ever announced or confirmed."
A source suggested the visit would be rescheduled when possible.
SNP MP Angus MacNeil, referencing 19th century moves by British imperialists to send gun boats to China during the Opium Wars, advised the Defence Secretary to brush up on his history.
Who would ever have thought it sending a gunboat the direction of China is not popular with a Chinese... They probably have historical memory of such British aggression in past, that UK has forgotten .. say in about 1840 and again 1857 ? ? https://t.co/TxPxUsuEZn
— Angus B MacNeil MP (@AngusMacNeilSNP) February 16, 2019
Tory former chancellor George Osborne accused Williamson of engaging in "gunboat diplomacy" as he said it was important for ministers to not send mixed messages.
"I think it's very difficult to work out what the British Government's China policy is at the moment," he told BBC Radio 4's Week In Westminster.
"You've got the Defence Secretary engaging in gunboat diplomacy of a quite old-fashioned kind, at the same time as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Foreign Secretary are going around saying they want a close economic partnership with China.
"Ultimately it's the responsibility of Theresa May as Prime Minister to sort this out because at the moment it looks all at sea."
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