Watch: British diplomat leaps into river to save drowning woman in China

A British diplomat is being praised for saving a drowning woman in southwestern China.

Stephen Ellison jumped into a river to rescue the woman after she fell into the water in a village on the outskirts of Chongqing.

Ellison is the British consul general in the Chinese city. Ellison, 61, told the BBC he had seen the woman pulled under a bridge with her head under the water. "So really, there wasn't a lot of time to do anything other than to get in," Ellison said.

The woman had slipped on rocks and fallen into the water.

Ellison quickly swam the woman to the river's bank. She has reportedly recovered from her ordeal.

Footage shot by onlookers showed Ellison tearing off his shoes and jumping in fully clothed. A life ring was thrown to the pair but Ellison swam to the bank by himself as others pulled the woman from the water.

Ellison received overwhelming praise on the Chinese internet, with some contrasting his fast action during the Saturday morning incident with the relative passivity of the onlookers.

Stephen Ellison. Photo / British Consul General

Footage posted online racked up millions of views, with commenters praising the selfless act. "We welcome this type of foreigner. Saving lives really has no borders," read one comment on the Twitter-like Wechat microblogging forum.

Ellison said the woman, who is from Wuhan and attends Chongqing University, was shaken by the experience and recovered slowly.

China-Britain relations have been under strain in recent months over trade, London's condemnation of China's crackdown on opposition figures in the former British colony of Hong Kong and Beijing's detention of more than 1 million members of Muslim minority groups in the northwestern territory of Xinjiang.