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30th Jul 2018

Jeremy Hunt forgets what country his wife is from during recent China trip

Carl Kinsella

Genuinely: how does this happen?

Before his resignation earlier this month, the British public had to get used to the high-profile gaffes that came with Boris Johnson being foreign secretary.

But with BoJo gone and his position being filled by Jeremy Hunt, the least we could hope for is that it would bring an end to BoJo’s blunderous diplomatic legacy of taking out children during sports games and joking about ‘dead bodies’.

Sadly, though, our hope may have been misplaced. Hunt is currently on his first trip to China in his new role and while speaking to Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, he managed to get his own wife’s nationality wrong.

“My wife is Japanese,” Hunt said, before quickly realising his error and saying: “My wife is Chinese. That’s a terrible mistake to make.”

Hunt went on to speak about the strong connections to China in his family: “My wife is Chinese and my children are half-Chinese and so we have Chinese grandparents who live in Xian and strong family connections in China.”

Hunt is married to Lucia Guo and the pair of them have three children together, but apparently, that’s not to remember where she was born. He quickly corrected himself, however, you can’t help but feel the damage may have already been done.