On 3 March 2010, Ambassador Liu Xiaoming called on Sir Peter Ricketts, Permanent Under-Secretary of British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Minister-Couselor Zhang Lirong of the Chinese embassy was present at the meeting.

Sir Peter Ricketts welcomed Ambassador Liu to the UK to assume his office and offered to provide facility to Ambassador Liu’s work. He also expressed readiness to meet and exchange views with Ambassador Liu regularly. Sir Peter Ricketts gave a positive assessment of the development of bilateral relations between China and Britain, featuring extensive cooperation and greater prominence on the world stage, and hoped Britain and China would promote cooperation at both bilateral and multilateral level.

Ambassador Liu thanked Sir Peter Ricketts for the meeting and expressed the hope to maintain close cooperation with him. Ambassador Liu said that China-Britain relations had gone beyond the bilateral level and was becoming more and more global and strategic in nature, with growing mutual interests. China was ready to take the bilateral relationship with Britain forward under the principle of mutual respect and mutual benefit.