The British Army President has been visiting Beijing first 10 years ago

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British army chief visited Beijing for the first time in a decade, on a visit announced by the Chinese government only.

General Liu Chengley, Chief of Staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Central Military Committee in China, met to hold talks with Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, UK’s Chief of Defense Staff, in Beijing on Wednesday, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Defense in China.

The Chinese statement said: “The two sides made in -depth exchanges about the relations between China and the United States and military relations to military, international and regional positions and common concerns, and had contact with the promotion of stock exchanges and cooperation between the two eyes.”

The UK Ministry of Defense (MD) did not issue any announcement of the visit and refused to comment on Thursday after its confirmation.

The last time the British army president visited China in 2015, when General Sir Nicholas Hyton made a trip during the so-called “golden age” of the Anglo-Chinese relations during the era of the Prime Minister in the UK at the time.

While bilateral relations have become increasing under the departments led by subsequent conservatives, Prime Minister Sir Kerr Starmer has climbed with Beijing since his victory last July.

UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Foreign Minister David Lami has visited China in recent months, where he is expected to visit Starmer later this year.

However, some of the Ministry’s defense figures questioned Radakin’s visit to a week in which the trade war between the United States of China intensified, and while Britain is urgently seeking to negotiate a 10 percent tariff imposed by US President Donald Trump on UK exports.

UK officials said the trip had been planned months ago and was not related to the United States in any way.

Matthew Savil, Director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, a thinking center for defense and security, said that widespread planning and long pioneer of such a trip would have been a dilemma of the UK government in these circumstances.

They will have a difficult decision: “Do we cancel this or not? “They don’t seem to have dealt with this well on the Communications Front,” he said.

Savil added that the “bad” result was that the Chinese Ministry of Defense only announced a high -level visit, noting that UK officials may have seen it as an “compromise” option to move forward on the trip, but not in the end of the British.

The visit came before Amir Wales’s royal aircraft carrier, which is sailing in a group of carrier in a group of several weeks on a eight -month -old trip to the Mediterranean, India and Pacific.

Twelve other countries, including Norway, Canada and Spain, support the UK -led multinational publication, which the UK leadership force said to seek to support stability in the Indian Pacific Ocean. “

The Ministry of Defense said that the aircraft carrier will exercise with the Japanese army, in addition to joining a 19 -countries exercise near Australia.

However, the UK government has not confirmed whether the carrier strike group will sail across the South China Sea in the exercise of freedom of navigation, amid concerns about Beijing’s activities in the region.

Saville said that Radakin’s trip to Beijing had been placed at least at least at least “to ensure that there is no misunderstanding” with the Chinese army about the flight of the British carrier group.

UK officials said that it is in Britain to maintain strong communications from military to military with China. They added that the government held fixed talks on the importance of peace and stability in the Indian Pacific Ocean, as well as avoiding the use of military pressure to achieve political goals.