Alan Mak, a former corporate lawyer whose parents emigrated to Britain from southern China, became the first ethnic Chinese to be elected to Britain’s House of Commons yesterday.
Cambridge-educated Mak, 31, comfortably won the constituency of Havant in southern England for the Conservatives, taking more than 51 percent of the votes cast, according to results from Thursday’s general election.
HARD WORK
“I’m honored and delighted to be elected the new member of parliament for Havant,” Mak said in comments published by the Portsmouth News Web site. “We had a really strong campaign with lots of support from residents on the doorstep. I’m looking forward to working hard to support everyone in this constituency.”
Mak’s father emigrated to the UK in the 1960s and his mother moved soon afterwards. Both were from Guangdong Province in southern China, he said in an interview with a magazine covering British-Chinese issues.
The couple ran a small takeaway restaurant in the northern city of York, where the newly elected lawmaker was born.
Mak has played down the political impact of his ethnic roots in recent interviews.
“I certainly have no interest in what people in Hong Kong or China think of me, because I am not representing them,” Mak told Hong Kong’s the South China Morning Post this month. “I am representing the people of Havant.”
The Post said Mak was one of 11 ethnic Chinese candidates vying for seats in parliament and was the only one elected so far.
Just under 1 percent of Britain’s population is ethnic Chinese, according to a 2011 census.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
The most powerful solar storm in more than two decades struck Earth on Friday, triggering spectacular celestial light shows from Tasmania to the UK — and threatening possible disruptions to satellites and power grids as it persists into the weekend. The first of several coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — expulsions of plasma and magnetic fields from the sun — came just after 4pm GMT, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center. It was later upgraded to an “extreme” geomagnetic storm — the first since the “Halloween Storms” of October 2003 caused blackouts in Sweden and damaged
DISPUTED WATERS: The Philippines accused China of building an artificial island on Sabina Shoal, while Beijing said Manila was trying to mislead the global community The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) is committed to sustaining a presence in a disputed area of the South China Sea to ensure Beijing does not carry out reclamation activities at Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Reef), its spokesperson said yesterday. The PCG on Saturday said it had deployed a ship to Sabina Shoal, where it accused China of building an artificial island, amid an escalating maritime row, adding two other vessels were in rotational deployment in the area. Since the ship’s deployment in the middle of last month, the PCG said it had discovered piles of dead and crushed coral that had been dumped
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion