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UK’s top envoy makes ‘Japanese wife’ gaffe in China
BEIJING, July 30, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Britain’s new foreign minister made an
awkward debut in China on Monday when he sought to curry favour with his
hosts by mentioning his Chinese wife, but accidentally referred to her as
“Japanese”.
China and Japan have been traditional rivals for centuries. Although
relations have improved somewhat recently, they remain touchy due to issues
such as Japan’s bloody occupation of parts of China in the 1930s and 40s.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, on his first official visit to China,
quickly acknowledged the “terrible” error.
“My wife is Japanese — my wife is Chinese. That’s a terrible mistake to
make,” he told his counterpart, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
“My wife is Chinese and my children are half-Chinese and so we have Chinese
grandparents who live in Xian and strong family connections in China,” he
added, referring to the ancient city of Xian in northern China.
A former health minister, Hunt is married to Lucia Guo, with whom he has
three children.
He succeeds the gaffe-prone Boris Johnson — who once referred to Africans
as “flag-waving piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles” in a newspaper column
— after Johnson dramatically resigned over Prime Minister Theresa May’s
Brexit blueprint earlier this month.
Hunt is in China in a bid to strengthen trade ties with Beijing ahead of
Britain’s exit from the European Union next year.
Other topics on the table are expected to be “the importance of
multilateralism and free trade and ways the UK and China can work together on
global challenges such as climate change, development, security and non-
proliferation and enforcing UN sanctions on North Korea”, his office said
ahead of the trip.
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1140 hrs