Prominent Chinese dissidents and activists will protest against the Chinese state visit today, with one comparing the government’s invitation to Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler.
Hundreds of people are expected to join a protest in St James’s Park, central London, organised by Amnesty International, to highlight human rights violations under President Xi, as China’s head of state drives up the Mall to Buckingham Palace.
Among the protesters will be Shao Jiang, an academic, who was jailed in China after he was one of the last protesters to leave Tiananmen Square during the crackdown and massacre in 1989. “[Inviting Xi Jinping] is very dangerous,” he said. “Before the Second World War, the British and [prime minister] Chamberlain sold out the Czech people, and that cost the British people a lot. If you continue just to placate him and claim national interest, it could definitely damage your country.”
Mr Shao, who has lived in Britain since 2003, said: “It is very important that the British public understand what your government is trying to do. There are two versions of China: there is the Xi Jinping China, but the other is civil society China and resistance China, which wants real democracy and fights for human rights.
“If you choose Xi Jinping’s dictator China, imagine the damage it does to your country . . . Putting the issue of human rights away undermines your human rights and harms your democracy. It is not just a Chinese issue, it is relevant to the Human Rights Act in Britain.”
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Also at the protest will be Joshua Wong, the political activist who co-founded the Scholarism student pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. He led pro-democracy protests against the Chinese government’s refusal to introduce full universal suffrage in Hong Kong. It became known as the “umbrella movement” after citizens held umbrellas to protect themselves against tear gas. In advance of a talk at the Oxford Union last night, Mr Wong, 19, told The Times that Britain could not trust any agreements signed with China, claiming that it had reneged on the Sino-British joint declaration on Hong Kong, signed in 1984, to work towards universal suffrage.
“The British government is interested to have more co-operation with the Chinese government, but how can they make agreements with a China government that will not keep their promises? I want the British government to raise the Hong Kong issue,” he said.
While he welcomed the commitment by Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour party, to raise human rights during President Xi’s visit, Mr Wong said: “David Cameron and the government and the Conservative party have the responsibility to raise this issue, not just the Labour party.”