China lashes out at UK expansion of visa scheme following Jimmy Lai

China’s embassy in London Tuesday criticized the U.K.’s decision to expand a visa program for Hong Kong residents, calling the move an interference in its internal affairs after a court sentenced pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison under a national security law.

The U.K. on Monday expanded the British National Overseas (BNO) visa scheme on Monday to allow children of BNO status holders — who were under 18 at the time of Hong Kong’s handover to mainland China in June 1997 — to apply for the route independently of their parents.

“BNO has misled Hong Kong residents to leave their homes, only to face discrimination and hardship in the U.K., living as second-class citizens,” an embassy spokesperson said in a statement in Chinese translated by CNBC.

The embassy described the scheme expansion as “despicable” and “reprehensible.”

“China has always firmly opposed the UK’s manipulation and interference in China’s internal affairs,” the embassy spokesperson said.

The scheme was launched in 2021 after Beijing imposed the sweeping national security law on Hong Kong. Since then, over 230,000 people have been granted visas, and almost 170,000 have relocated to the U.K.

The diplomatic tensions followed the sentencing of Lai by a Hong Kong court on Monday, in one of the city’s most prominent prosecutions. That was the heaviest penalty ever meted out under the national security law.

The 78-year-old founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper was a vocal critic of Beijing and was among the first prominent figures arrested in August 2020. He was jailed on charges of conspiring to collude with foreign forces and publishing seditious materials. Lai pleaded not guilty to all counts.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer raised the case with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a visit to Beijing last month, calling for the release of Lai, who is a British citizen. Critics and Lai’s family have argued that the U.K. did not take sufficient and concrete steps to reverse the course.

The sentencing showed how the Beijing-imposed national security law has “criminalised dissent, prompting many to leave the territory,” the British government said in a statement, adding that it will “rapidly engage [with Beijing] further on Mr Lai’s case.”

The expanded visa route came amid what the British government described as a “deterioration of rights and freedoms” in Hong Kong. The government estimated that 26,000 people will arrive in the U.K. over the next 5 years.

Hong Kong’s chief executive John Lee said Tuesday that Lai deserved the harsh sentencing for all the harm that he had done, including “using Apple Daily to poison the minds of citizens” and “colluding with foreign forces to take sanctions and hostile actions against China and Hong Kong.”

Other governments have renewed calls for Lai’s…