China's media was abuzz Tuesday with video footage of UK diplomat Stephen Ellison jumping into waters flowing through a scenic location in the southwestern Chinese metropolis of Chongqing and rescuing a woman student. The Chinese woman is first seen floating face down and apparently drowning.

Saturday's feat drew praise from China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian during a daily media briefing in Bejing.

"I want to give him a big thumbs up," Zhao said. Meanwhile, British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said the 61-year-old Ellison had demonstrated the "very best of British diplomats around the world." 

Ellison, recently assigned as British consul general to Chongqing, told interviewers the woman, reportedly 24, started breathing again as they neared the river bank and later invited him to share a meal together. 

Read more: EU chiefs press China on trade, Hong Kong

China's state-run publication The Paper showed Ellison, taking off his shoes but springing to her rescue otherwise fully clothed. 

And, China's official news agency Xinhua said: "Thanks to the rescue, the student soon resumed breathing and regained consciousness." 

Chongqing lies up-stream of China's massive Three-Gorges Dam that spans the Yangtze River.

'Immensely proud'

Britain's embassy in Beijing said everyone was "immensely proud" of the former engineer and triathlete. By Tuesday, the videoed topic had gathered 170 million views and widespread comments on the microblogging website Weibo. 

At China's foreign ministry briefing Tuesday, Zhao Lijian said: "I'd like to give him a big, big thumbs up." 

The praise comes amid a slump in Sino-British relations, as London and Beijing collide over curbs on political freedoms in Hong Kong, once a British colony, as well as over treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, and over Britain barring Huawei from its domestic 5G telecommunications network. 

ipj/dj (dpa, Reuters, AFP)