Liu Xiaoming, the Communist Party’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, confirmed on Jan. 20 that he was leaving his post while attending an online symposium. In contrast to the official serious news, when people talk about the ambassador to the UK, they inevitably recall that he liked a pornographic video. As soon as the news of Liu Xiaoming’s departure was sent out, Weibo netizens have commented and teased, some said that Liu Xiaoming back Home “can no longer turn the wall to watch small videos”; others dared to speculate that “in a few days maybe black stockings will become contraband, because it will stimulate Xiaoming “. However, many of these comments have now been deleted. The official microblog of “Phoenix” showed 222 messages under the microblog, but they had all been cleared out by the Time the Voice of Hope reporter went to press.
According to the official website of the Chinese Communist Party‘s embassy in Britain on the 20th, Liu Xiaoming confirmed that he would be leaving his post when he attended an online farewell seminar held by the British China Trade Association on the same day.
In his speech, Liu spoke of his achievements during his 11 years as ambassador in the UK, including promoting Sino-British financial and “One Belt, One Road” cooperation. He also pointed out that 11 years ago there were “basically no major landmark cooperation projects” between China and Britain, but now a number of Chinese investment flagship projects in the UK, such as the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station and Royal Albert Dock, are being promoted.
The Guardian’s website, which revealed Liu’s departure at the end of December last year, also mentioned that during his tenure, Sino-British relations had reached a high point in 2015, but have been going downhill ever since.
The report also said that Zheng Zeguang, who will take over the post of ambassador to the UK, is an expert on U.S. issues. Zheng, 57, was a teacher at Xingwen Middle School in Puning County, Guangdong Province, and later studied at the English Department of South China Normal University, and after graduation, he worked his way up from a section officer to director of the North America and Oceania Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Communist Party of China.
According to an analysis by the South China Morning Post, Zheng Zeguang’s personnel changes also affect the choice of the CCP’s ambassador to the United States. Since Cui Tiankai is now 68 years old and has reached retirement age, Beijing should have been looking for a possible successor, but Zheng Zeguang’s appointment to the U.K. means he has been removed from this list. The report mentions that Biden will not immediately change former President Trump‘s China Policy after he becomes US president, and Beijing will need to observe for some time and choose a suitable replacement for Cui Tiankai.
In recent years, Beijing has tightened freedom for Hong Kong on all fronts, triggering a strong backlash from Hong Kong people. In July 2020, the Chinese Communist Party forced the passage of the National Security Law in Hong Kong, followed by the arrest and suppression of Hong Kong democrats, and the flight of several pro-democracy figures from Hong Kong. At the same time, the media in Hong Kong were also subjected to the National Security Law, with a number of current affairs programs cancelled and editorial teams laid off. These events triggered a strong backlash from the UK, which directly introduced a policy of asylum for Hong Kong people, allowing BNO passport holders to work and stay in the UK, all of which caused a sharp turnaround in Sino-British relations.
As the spokesperson of the Chinese Communist Party in the UK, Liu Xiaoming has been defending the Chinese Communist Party on stage, in the same way as the “rogue diplomacy” of the Chinese Foreign Ministry. In the past, Liu has regularly attacked Chinese dissidents on television and Twitter, countering criticism of the CCP’s crackdown on democracy advocates in Hong Kong and the mass detention of Uighurs in the Xinjiang region. He has also repeatedly reversed black and white on programs such as the BBC, such as claiming that the Sino-British Joint Declaration has expired and is invalid.
For many of the non-politically concerned public, however, Liu became famous because of his fondness for pornographic videos and was caught giving credit to one of them that featured a woman in black stockings.
On September 9, 2020, Liu Xiaoming’s officially authenticated Twitter account @AmbLiuXiaoMing was found to have liked the pornographic video. The video was far more shocking than the Communist Party’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian‘s stalking of Japanese AV actress Aoi Air’s Twitter account. Zhao Lijian simply followed Aoi Air and became a fan; Liu was more direct, watching the pornographic video. Although the video was quickly deleted, a large number of screenshots quickly spread across the Internet as if they had grown wings. The incident was also reported by the British media, drawing the crowd and ridicule of British MPs.
Luke de Pulford, a member of the British Conservative Party’s Human Rights Committee, retweeted the posting and wrote, “Warning: do not read this while you are eating.” He also mocked Liu in passing, and the post received more than 4,000 likes in two hours. Harry Cole, a political editor for the British media, tweeted to question Liu’s character.
Although the Chinese Embassy in Britain immediately issued a statement, saying that it was maliciously attacked by “anti-Chinese elements” Hackers and asked Twitter to investigate the matter, the embassy has not updated any progress of the case since then. The company’s Twitter account is normal, and it is judged to be operated by itself or someone close to it. Although the news was not confirmed, Twitter also did not respond to Liu Xiaoming’s request for investigation.
Many netizens also did not buy the above response. One Internet vlogger mocked, “It seems that this hacker went to a lot of trouble to break into Ambassador Liu’s account for no other reason than to watch a pornographic video, should I be worried about the IQ of the hacker or the entire embassy staff?
After the news of Liu Xiaoming’s departure, many netizens immediately thought of the pornographic video he liked, and on Sina Weibo, netizens were asking “Is it the one who ordered the video?” It seems to be unspoken; others reminded that “black stockings are either banned or taken off the market recently” and “people who live in Dongjiaominxiang Lane should not dry their stockings on the balcony in the near future, so as not to stimulate Xiaoming”; some also questioned the official double standard. “Why can Liu Xiaoming go back and International Students can’t?”
However, some of these messages have now been deleted. On the official microblog of Phoenix, there were over 200 comments below the news of Liu Xiaoming’s confirmation of stepping down as ambassador, but they have now been deleted altogether.
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