Chinese ambassador to Britain Liu Xiaoming is stepping down after being in office for 10 years. His successor Zheng Zeguang, Beijing’s current vice minister of foreign affairs, will need to handle the consequences of the new U.K. policy, which allows Hong Kong citizens with British national (overseas) passports to work and study in the country, The Guardian reports.

The retirement of the 64-year-old envoy was confirmed by Tam Yiu-chung, Hong Kong’s sole delegate to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, on Monday.

57-year-old Zhang from Puning of Guangdong joined the foreign ministry upon graduation from the foreign language department of South China Normal University. He studied at Cardiff University, before being sent to Trinidad and Tobago and the U.S. He became a minister at the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. in 2005 and director-general of the North America and Oceania department in 2008. He was appointed the foreign vice-minister in 2015.

An expert on American affairs, the Chinese diplomat was once tipped to be the successor of Cui Tiankai, the Chinese ambassador to the U.S. After the White House imposed sanctions on 14 Chinese officials over their alleged roles in Beijing’s disqualification of opposition lawmakers in Hong Kong, Zheng has summoned diplomats from the U.S. embassy in China to express strong condemnations and accused America of interfering in its domestic affairs.

Liu has been ambassador for a decade, far longer than the usual four-year stint, during which he witnessed the rapid decline in Chinese-British diplomatic relations. Considered a wolf warrior, Liu has aggressively responded on behalf of Beijing to criticisms from different parties in the U.K.

“But if you want to make China a hostile country, you will have to bear the consequences,” he told reporters after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s administration banned the Chinese firm Huawei from its 5G networks.

In a tense interview with BBC’s Andrew Marr, Liu denied the human rights abuses of Uighurs in Xinjiang, even when confronted with drone footage that showed them kneeling on the floor with their eyes blindfolded. “Uighur people enjoy peaceful, harmonious coexistence with other ethnic groups of people,” he said.

Liu has also repeatedly lambasted the U.K. government over “irresponsible remarks” on Hong Kong affairs.

Though active on social media, Liu was found to have liked an X-rated video tweet in September this year. He later claimed his account to be hacked and demanded Twitter to investigate.

Click here for Chinese version

---------------------------------

Apple Daily’s all-new English Edition is now available on the mobile app: bit.ly/2yMMfQE

To download the latest version,

iOS: bit.ly/AD_iOS

Android: bit.ly/AD_android

Or search Appledaily in App Store or Google Play