Mauritius has fuelled fresh security fears over the Chagos islands deal after announcing it would seek a closer relationship with China.
The Chinese ambassador to Mauritius said she supported “deepening full-fledged exchanges and co-operation between China and Mauritius” after a meeting with the country’s prime minister on Thursday.
The Chagos deal, to be announced by Sir Keir Starmer’s Government in the coming weeks, will lead to the island chain being handed to Mauritius and the Diego Garcia base there leased back to the UK.
Critics of the deal argue that Mauritius’s close relationship with China is a security risk, because Beijing could spy on future military operations at the base.
They say that China could install military operations on islands close to the base, which would make it harder for the UK and US to operate in the Indo-Pacific region.
Tory MPs and Republicans in Washington have urged the Government to scrap the deal, but Donald Trump has signalled his agreement for the islands to be given away.
The security fears were stoked on Thursday by a meeting between the Chinese ambassador Huang Shifang and Navin Ramgoolam, the Mauritian prime minister.
Mr Ramgoolam has been negotiating the transfer of the islands, which will cost UK taxpayers a reported £9 billion.
After Thursday’s meeting, the Mauritian government said Ms Huang had “pointed out that Mauritius possesses strategic advantages and expressed confidence that there will be broad prospects for future collaboration between the two countries”.
The government said that Ms Huang had emphasised close economic ties between China and Mauritius, including that the free trade agreement between the two countries was the first between China and an African country.
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“As the new Chinese Ambassador to Mauritius, Dr Huang said that she is fully committed to deepening full-fledged exchanges and cooperation between China and Mauritius,” it said.
The Foreign Office says it has no security concerns about leasing the Diego Garcia military base from Mauritius, and insists that the deal will contain security guarantees to prevent Chinese influence.
But the meeting provoked fury from Dame Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, who said it showed Sir Keir had endangered British and American interests by signing away the islands.
“This is exactly what we have been warning the Government of from the very start,” she told The Telegraph.
“Fuelled by their endless sense of shame about our great country, and their Leftist decolonising ideologies, Labour have rushed to surrender our own sovereign territory, with zero consideration of who might benefit from this shameful giveaway.
“It is clear Labour are far more concerned with kowtowing to Beijing to recognise the threat that China poses to our interests, and this shoddy affair is yet another example. When Labour negotiates, Britain loses.”
The UK argues that it is required to give up sovereignty of the Chagos islands, known officially as the British Indian Ocean territory, because of a ruling by the International Court of Justice in 2019 that said they should belong to Mauritius.
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Ministers say the “security” of the base, which is shared with the US, would be put at risk because of Britain’s shaky legal footing.
But critics say the court can be safely ignored, and that the talks amount to an attempt by Mauritius to extract more money and territory from Britain in the international courts.
The Telegraph understands that the deal is close to being announced by the UK, and should be put before MPs in the coming weeks.
Mr Trump, whose secretary of state, Marco Rubio, criticised the plan to give away the islands, gave his cautious backing to the deal at a meeting with Sir Keir in Washington earlier this year.
UK officials have always denied that there is any security risk from China, and point to the American government’s support for the deal.
Separately, it was reported on Thursday that Downing Street has delayed the signing of the deal amid concerns it has become “toxic” among MPs.
The estimated £9 billion cost of the deal will be difficult to sell to Labour MPs at the same time as welfare cuts, The Times reported.
