Britain joined the US, EU and Canada in slapping sanctions on senior Chinese officials today over Beijing’s ‘highly disturbing programme of repression’ against Uighur Muslims.
Dominic Raab said the UK would join a travel ban and asset freeze affecting four senior figures accused of gross human rights abuses in Xinjiang Province.
The Foreign Secretary lashed out at China in the Commons, accusing it of ‘egregious, industrial-scale human rights abuse’ and of carrying out ‘one of the worst human rights crises of our time’.
Rights groups believe at least one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities have been incarcerated in camps in the northwestern region, where China is also accused of forcibly sterilising women and imposing forced labour.
The announcement of international ‘Magnitsky sanctions’ comes as Boris Johnson tries to fight off critics of his softly-softly approach to Beijing as it threatens to turn into a Tory civil war.
China hawks in the party are worried about the country’s growing military and anti-democratic threat and want the Government to follow the example of the United States and formally describing the ethnic cleansing as ‘genocide’.
But pro-trade MPs want to remain on good business terms with a global economic titan as the UK ploughs a post-Brexit path.
UK MPs will vote later on an amendment to legislation that would limit the Government’s ability to strike agreements with countries involved in the most serious human rights abuse.
More than 30 Tory backbenchers rebelled last month to defy the Prime Minister over its refusal to follow the US’s lead and officially categorise the treatment of the Uighurs as ‘genocide’. And it is understood that rebels believe tonight’s vote could see enough break ranks to overturn the Government’s working majority of 87.
Dominic Raab said the UK would bring in a travel ban and freeze assets of four senior figures accused of gross human rights abuses in Xinjiang Province.
The treatment of China’s Uighur Muslim minority has sparked protests around the world and MPs want the Government to take a more aggressive stance.
Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said today that MPs can ‘send a signal’ to China and ‘give hope’ to victims of human rights abuses by supporting the Lords amendment tonight.
Hawks are furious that the Government is not following the example of the United States and formally describing the ethnic cleansing of Uighurs in Xinjiang under China’s leader Xi Jinping (pictured) as ‘genocide’.
Speaking in the Commons, Mr Raab said: ‘This is one of the worst human rights crises of our time and I believe the evidence is clear as it is sobering.
‘It includes satellite imagery, survivor testimony, official documentation and indeed leaks from the Chinese government itself, credible open source reporting including from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, visits by British diplomats to the region that have corroborated other reports about the targeting of specific ethnic groups.’
He added: ‘The evidence points to a highly disturbing programme of repression. Expressions of religion have been criminalised, Uighur language and culture discriminated against on a systematic scale.
‘There is widespread use of forced labour, women forcibly sterilised, children separated from their parents. An entire population subject to surveillance, including collection of DNA, use of facial recognition software and so called predictive policing algorithms.’
But shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy questioned why it had taken the Foreign Secretary so long to act given the evidence of abuse against the Uighurs has been ‘known about for years’.
Ms Nandy said: ‘The truth is that the timing of this is grubby and it is cynical. It is designed to send a signal, first and foremost, not to the Chinese government but to his own backbenchers.
‘It is motivated primarily by a desire to protect the Government not the Uighur. For all the talk of being a force for good in the world, it is only when this Government is staring down the barrel of defeat that it discovers a moral centre.
‘Only now that the US and EU have acted has he finally moved to take this step.’
Ms Nandy urged Conservative MPs to back a Trade Bill amendment aimed at preventing deals with countries involved in genocide, accusing the Government of ‘twisting the arms’ of its backbenchers.
The four officials targeted were former and current officials in the western Xinjiang region – along with the state-run Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.
The highly symbolic move by the EU against Beijing is the first time Brussels has targeted China over human rights abuses since it imposed an arms embargo in 1989 after the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
When the Government published its Integrated Review of foreign and defence policy on Tuesday, a series of senior Conservatives expressed concern that it did not take a tougher line on Beijing, instead calling for deeper trade links.
Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said today that the ‘buck stops’ with the President of China.
He told the Commons: ‘What China has been doing to the Uighur people and others including the Tibetans is nothing short of absolutely appalling and frankly, like (Tom Tugendhat) said, we’re dancing elaborately around the whole idea of genocide when it’s quite clear that is what’s going on.’
Sir Iain added: ‘The buck for all of this stops with the President of China who was recently quoted as saying about the Uighur people that they, the Chinese, should show them no mercy. When do we start calling his name out?’
Mr Raab responded: ‘I think that the action that we’ve taken both today but also more generally with the Magnitsky sanctions regime shows that we are not afraid not just to talk, but also to act.’
Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) said: ‘I’m glad that this Government and others are now taking the treatment of Uighur people seriously and the violations to their human rights.’
Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee, asked Dominic Raab why he is ‘reticent’ to use the term ‘genocide’ when describing the scenes in Xinjiang.
He told the Commons: ‘Could I ask, for a gentleman who’s devoted so much of his career to human rights law, what is it in the human rights law or in the UN definition of genocide that fails to get him to use the word in this circumstance?
‘My understanding, and I admit I’m not a lawyer, but my understanding is that the attempted destruction of a people or its culture in whole or in part constitutes genocide and what he has just described to the House sounds to me like it fits that definition so I’m just wondering why he is reticent to use the word?’
Mr Tugendhat added: ‘Given that he has quite rightly identified that sanctions on individuals operating in the UK are a matter of grave concern, could he please let the House know when he intends to bring forward a foreign agents registration Act?
‘As he knows as well as I do, sadly there are too many people in the UK, British people, sometimes even sadly former ministers or those connected to government, who are using their influence in a surreptitious manner to further the aims or interests of a country like China that is so violating human rights.’
Mr Raab responded: ‘The arguments around genocide and the importance of it being determined by a court are well rehearsed. Equally as we’ve made clear, the importance of this House controlling the executive in relation to free trade policy. In relation to further legislation, an announcement will be made by the relevant secretary of state in due course.’
China has strongly denied allegations of forced labour involving Uighurs in Xinjiang and says training programmes, work schemes and better education have helped stamp out extremism in the region.
The latest change tabled by the human rights campaigner Lord Alton of Liverpool would establish a parliamentary panel of judicial experts which could determine whether any proposed signatory to a trade agreement with the UK had committed genocide.
Ministers have opposed the move arguing it would ‘blur the distinction between courts and Parliament’ while the response to concerns over genocide in relation to trade policy was ultimately a ‘political question’.
However they face growing unrest on the Tory benches among MPs concerned about China’s treatment of its Uighur minority in Xinjiang province.
It comes a day after Labour appealed to Tory MPs to defy the whips and back the amendment and following a rebellion last month by 31 Conservative MPs.
The rebellion slashed the Government’s majority of 80 to just 15 amid accusations of ‘dirty tricks’ by ministers to scupper an earlier amendment by the upper chamber to give the courts a role in deciding whether trade deals can go ahead.
Tory MP Nusrat Ghani, who has signalled she will rebel to back the Lords amendment to the Trade Bill, questioned the Government’s rationale in holding the door open to trade deals with countries accused of committing genocide.
The former minister told BBC Radio 4’s Today: ‘To assume that countries that are involved in genocide at any point are going to stop to ensure they get a preferential trade deal is a curious way to go about this.
‘The interesting thing about this is the Government’s own amendment, the (Sir Bob) Neill amendment, will allow many groups of people around the world to come and present their case, but somehow does not allow the Uighur to come forward and make their case.
‘So why would we have an amendment on the floor of the House that the Government is pushing that seems to exclude the Uighur?’ she asked.
Ms Ghani said MPs should be able to ‘assess the data’ to rule, as America and Canada have done, on whether China is committing genocide in Xinjiang, with claims of forced sterilisations and labour camps for Uighur Muslims.
In a letter to Tory MPs at the weekend, shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy and shadow international trade Emily Thornberry said the vote tonight was an opportunity for the House to send a ‘united message’ to the Government.
‘Recent comments by the Foreign Secretary and other ministers make clear the Government is prepared to sign trade deals with countries even when there are serious human rights concerns,’ they said.
‘The extensive rear-guard action to block a vote on the genocide amendment only reinforces our concern that the Government does not want to have its freedom of manoeuvre with China and other states limited in any way by the moral convictions shared across the House.
‘Next week, Parliament can send a united message that genocide can never be met with indifference, impunity or inaction, and must certainly never be rewarded with preferential terms of trade.’
Yesterday the Prime Minister’s father has waded into the row by urging him to ‘stand up’ to the hawks, accusing them of seeking a ‘new Cold War’ with Beijing.
Former MEP Stanley Johnson said it is ‘absolutely vital’ that Britain continues to ‘work very closely’ with the Chinese government ‘even more’ post-Brexit.
The 80-year-old rubbished Tory demands that the UK should be tougher despite a year of tensions with China.
Speaking to Times Radio, he said he was suspicious of a ‘tendency’ among Conservatives to ‘cook up’ a conflict with Beijing, saying that it does not make ‘any sense’ to try to match Beijing ‘weapon for weapon’.
Instead, Mr Johnson Sr called China ‘the key to so many things’ – from climate change to the world economy and the pandemic – and hinted that Tory passions could be ‘redirected’ to Brussels instead.
The Prime Minister’s father has waded into the Tory civil war on China by urging him to ‘stand up’ to the hawks accused of seeking a ‘new Cold War’ with Beijing
‘China is absolutely not a bette noir. It’s the key to so many things,’ the Prime Minister’s father said.
‘In political terms, it’s absolutely vital we work very closely with China. He (the Prime Minister) is right not to write off China at this point – on the contrary, I think he’s right to move to discussions with China, important discussions.
‘It is inevitable, even more inevitable now that we have left the EU.’
Asked whether the UK should be tougher with Beijing, he went on: ‘Well, I don’t think we’re going to do that. I don’t think there’s any way in which we can match China weapon for weapon for weapon.
‘I do not think that makes any sense at all, we’ve got to engage with China at an intellectual level. Look at the number of Chinese students at British universities today. Can you imagine the effect on British universities, even the financial effect on British universities, if we had a rupture now with the Chinese?
‘I mean, a lot of them would just go out of business, that they are so dependent on Chinese students, Chinese research, and so on and so forth. So I feel quite strongly.
‘I would be worried by a tendency in the Tory party to suddenly, you know, cook up… maybe they’ll be distracted by Ursula von der Leyen. We’ll see, maybe their aggressive instincts can be redirected to Brussels at this point in time.’
Mr Johnson Sr met Chinese ambassador Liu Xiaoming and emailed his worries about coronavirus to British officials in February of last year.
Accidentally copying in the BBC, the Prime Minister’s father used his personal email address to share an account of the discussion with the environment minister Lord Goldsmith and other government officials.