Chile–United Kingdom relations

Chilean President Sebastián Piñera and his wife meeting Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in 2010

England played an important role in Chile's history. According to William Edmundson's A History of the British Presence in Chile, 2009, Chile had the same head of state as England in the 16th century, Queen Mary I. When she married Philip II, he was still a prince, so the King of Spain, Carlos V, Holy Roman Emperor made him and Mary the King and Queen of Chile, as well as of England, Ireland, Naples and Jerusalem. Mary became such from her marriage in 1554 to her husband's coronation as King of Spain in 1556, when Chile became part of the possessions of the Spanish. Although there is no record or evidence to support the claim that Phillip was made 'King of Chile', it still remains as known anecdote in the country.

Throughout the Chilean colonial period, British naval vessels in times of war, occasional privateers – and in times of peace British and colonial pirates, outlaws, at risk of execution by neutral parties – harassed the wealthy Spanish authorities in Chile by plundering their ships. In times of peace private trade ships from both empires brought mutually needed goods. British forces and the Mapuche both allied themselves to depose the Spanish hold in the country. Britain assisted the Chileans' fight for independence in the 1810s, led by Lord Cochrane. The British Admiral Lord Cochrane was the Chilean Navy's first commander who fought in the Chilean War of Independence and five Chilean Navy ships have been named in his honour.

In the early 1910s, Britain sold a super-dreadnought battleship Almirante Latorre to Chile. Although retained by the Royal Navy through the war, the ship was delivered after it and served as the Chilean Navy's flagship for many decades thereafter. In the modern era Chilean Navy and the Royal Navy maintain a close relationship with one ex-British Type 22 and three Type 23 frigates in Chilean service.

During the Falklands War in 1982, with the still pending Beagle conflict, Chile and Colombia became the only Latin American countries to abstain from voting in the TIAR (as did the United States and Trinidad and Tobago). Chile provided the UK with limited, but significant information.[1][2] The Chilean position is described in detail by Sir Lawrence Freedman in his book The Official History of the Falklands Campaign.[3]

The two countries signed a continuity agreement on 30 January 2019, which came in to effect on 1 January 2021.[4] In July 2023, the United Kingdom has signed the agreement to acceed to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade bloc of which Chile is a founding member.[5]

• Chile has an embassy in London.
• United Kingdom has an embassy in Santiago.

• 
  Embassy of Chile in London
• 
  Embassy of the United Kingdom in Santiago

• Accession of the United Kingdom to CPTPP
• British Chilean
• Chileans in the United Kingdom

• Centner, Charles W. "Great Britain and Chilean Mining 1830-1914" Economic History Review 12#1 (1942), pp. 76–82 Online
• Livingstone, Grace. "British campaigns for solidarity with Argentina and Chile." Bulletin of Latin American Research 39.5 (2020): 614-628; late 20c.
• Mayo, John. "Britain and Chile, 1851-1886: anatomy of a relationship." Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 23.1 (1981): 95-120. Online

• http://ukinchile.fco.gov.uk/en/