{"id":214814,"date":"2025-06-26T03:13:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T03:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/214814\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T03:13:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T03:13:11","slug":"uk-minister-warned-of-threat-from-china-when-chagos-deal-expires-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/214814\/","title":{"rendered":"UK minister warned of threat from China when Chagos deal expires \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The decision to hand over the Chagos Islands came after a non-binding ruling from the International Court of Justice pressured the U.K. to allow Chagossians \u2014 who were removed between 1968 and 1973 to make way for the Diego Garcia base<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>\u2014 to return, ending years of legal uncertainty.<\/p>\n<p>But conservative critics of the Chagos deal in the U.K. have argued it hands control of the strategically vital territory to a country with links to China, and represents poor value for British taxpayer money.<\/p>\n<p>De Mauley\u2019s committee launched a brief probe into the implications of the transfer shortly after the deal was struck.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThings can change significantly over a span of 99 years, including in ways that cannot be predicted,\u201d said an annex to de Mauley\u2019s letter to Lammy, published Thursday. \u201cWhile the Agreement can be renewed for a further 40 years after the initial 99-year term \u2014 and for a further period subsequently \u2014 we heard that there was \u2018no assurance of renewal\u2019 and that this would depend on the goodwill of future Mauritian governments (and UK intentions).\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"723\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/13096566-1024x723.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6816765\"  \/>Britain must address the potential threat from China when its deal regarding the Chagos group of islands expires, senior British lawmakers have warned Foreign Secretary David Lammy. | Jalal Morchidi\/EPA<\/p>\n<p>While his committee had been \u201cassured that the Agreement safeguards current operational freedoms,\u201d de Mauley added in comments to POLITICO that it was \u201cimperative that the Government remain vigilant and proactive in addressing potential future vulnerabilities, given China\u2019s growing military ambitions in the Indian Ocean.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>De Mauley also warned that \u201cpublic messaging on the strategic benefits of the base\u201d\u00a0would\u00a0be critical. Given the costs involved in leasing the base, he added, the\u00a0government\u00a0should be\u00a0\u201calert to attempts by hostile powers that may wish to leverage this to erode public support for the U.K.\u2019s presence on Diego Garcia.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The decision to hand over the Chagos Islands came after a non-binding ruling from the International Court of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,1395,6217,393,4884,54314,2597,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-214814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-china","11":"tag-david-lammy","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-mauritius","15":"tag-military","16":"tag-northern-ireland","17":"tag-scotland","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114747487705250280","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}