On 3 April 2025, Chinese Ambassador to the UK Zheng Zeguang attended and addressed the “Meet in Hunan” culture and tourism promotion event in London. Governor of Hunan Province Mao Weiming and Head of Tourism Affairs at VisitBritain Rachel Farrington also made remarks. The event was attended by more than 130 people from the cultural and tourism communities in China and the UK.

Zheng Zeguang said that China is committed to promoting Chinese modernisation through high-quality development and that China’s development will continue to bring new opportunities for global development. At a recent meeting with global business leaders in Beijing, President Xi Jinping underscored that the Chinese government highly values the important role of foreign-funded enterprises in China’s reform, opening up and modernisation, that China will remain an attractive place for foreign enterprises to invest and prosper in the long run, and that China will work earnestly to address the challenges faced by foreign businesses operating in China, further expand high-standard opening up, protect fair market competition, and step up service and support. China welcomes companies from the UK and other countries to seize the opportunities and broaden mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries.

Zheng Zeguang expressed China’s firm opposition to the tariff hikes on Chinese products the US announced under the pretext of “reciprocity”. He said that China will take necessary measures to firmly safeguard its legitimate interests. In the face of common challenges, the international community should work more closely to reject unilateral, protectionist and trade bullying practices and to keep the multilateral trading system stable.

Zheng Zeguang described the development of Hunan Province as a microcosm of China’s high-quality development. Hunan has a long history, a rich cultural heritage, and beautiful mountains and rivers. The Zhangjiajie scenic are, for one, is well known in and outside China. All these are part of Hunan’s rich cultural and tourism resources. Hunan is pursuing technological empowerment and striving to become a world-class cultural and tourism destination. Different communities in the UK are welcome to seize the opportunity to strengthen cultural and tourism cooperation and broaden economic and trade cooperation and people-to-people exchanges with Hunan. China has introduced facilitation measures such as a 240-hour visa-free transit policy for the UK and 53 other countries, and there are direct flights connecting London with Changsha and several other Chinese cities. Both China and Hunan welcome more visits from British friends. The Chinese Embassy in the UK will provide convenient services for the British people.

Governor Mao Weiming briefed the audience on Hunan’s development achievements in culture, tourism and other undertakings and highlighted opportunities for cooperation between Hunan and the UK. He invited people from all sectors in the UK to visit and invest in Hunan and to promote mutual benefit and people-to-people connections through cultural exchanges.

The promotion event included an intangible cultural heritage performance and a photo exhibition. The guests were captivated by the unique charm of Hunan culture.