Some prominent members of the British Parliament have suggested that the world’s leading democracies should form an alliance to counter the Chinese Communist Party’s abuses of human rights at home and its support of authoritarian regimes abroad.
Several lawmakers from Britain’s ruling Conservative Party have formed a China Study Group to focus on the changing influence of Beijing. They say the U.K. now urgently needs to develop a coherent policy toward China, and recently published a self-designated “policy toolkit” of recommendations.
Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the British Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, is one of the founders of the group. In a recent interview with the Voice of America, Tugendhat said, “What we want to do is to change China. We’re not trying to cut ties with China.”
Tugendhat said, “We want to try to encourage China to make changes based on the rules of the international system so that the Chinese people get the opportunities they deserve and so that the rest of the world is no longer threatened.”
The battle has global significance, said Steve Tsang, head of the Center for China Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.
Xi Jinping is interested in China exporting authoritarianism and supporting authoritarian regimes around the world,” Tsang said. It’s rather a bit of a battle between two different ideologies: liberal democracies versus China-backed authoritarianism.”
Among the policy recommendations made by this China Study Group is the formation of a coalition of ten leading democracies to collectively resist Chinese influence and impose sanctions on Chinese individuals involved in human rights abuses.
Tugendhat said Beijing is committing an increasing number of various atrocities that must be countered. He said, “We know (China) is using mass contraception, detention and slavery against Uighur Muslims; we know (China) is persecuting the Mongols in Inner Mongolia; we know (China) is persecuting the Tibetans; and we know very clearly now (China) is suppressing democratic rights in Hong Kong. All of these should be sanctioned.”
British Foreign Secretary Raab did not propose sanctions against individuals in the Chinese government in a speech to Parliament on Tuesday (Jan. 12), but only proposed some new regulations on business practices that aim to prevent British companies from having business relations with China’s forced labor practices.
Raab told British lawmakers, “In Britain, we must act to ensure that British businesses do not become part of the supply chain that leads to the gates of the Xinjiang internment camps; to ensure that the products produced in these internment camps through human rights abuses do not end up on the shelves of the supermarkets that we go to every week to buy from.”
The Chinese study group’s recommendations also included making foreign banks and financial institutions more legally responsible and preventing Hong Kong’s autonomy from being encroached upon by Beijing.
But Zeng Ruisheng said the West has very limited leverage. We have studied some of the major Western banks and financial institutions,” he said. They would be hurt much more in the process than the Chinese party state would be hurt.”
China is the largest trading partner of the United States and the European Union, respectively.
Tugendhat said, “Trade relationships usually come before political relationships, and that’s the entrepreneurial property of business. There’s no problem with that.”
But, Tugendhat said, “Sometimes we can’t forget that there are other challenges that need to be disciplined or changed or adjusted. That’s because we’re seeing unfair trade, it’s theft of intellectual property, maybe effective asset stripping.”
There are limits to the impact of any policy toolbox. The world’s democracies must win the ideological battle, says Rexon Tsang. “If we can’t win this argument through the reality of a democratic state, then we can’t win the competition with a Chinese-style pro-authoritarian approach.”
China has reacted angrily to Western accusations that it is restricting Hong Kong’s freedoms and trampling on human rights. “The countries concerned should face up to the reality that Hong Kong has returned to China,” said Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Communist Party’s Foreign Ministry, at a press conference on Monday.
Zhao Lijian said, “(They) should abide by international law and the basic norms of international relations, abandon double standards, effectively respect China’s sovereignty and the rule of law in Hong Kong, and immediately stop interfering in Hong Kong affairs and in China’s internal affairs in any form.”
Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997.
China denies that it has detained millions of Uighur minorities in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region and forced sterilization of Uighur women. However, there is overwhelming evidence that Chinese Communist authorities do engage in such acts in Xinjiang.
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