In a recent interview, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the United Kingdom should not engage in free trade with “human rights abusers” and called on China to allow the UN human rights commissioner to enter Xinjiang to inspect the region.
In a recent interview, Raab called on China to show more transparency in Xinjiang, where experts say millions of people are being held in re-education camps, but China still insists “everything is a lie from the West,” according to foreign media reports. Raab stressed that if China disputes the allegations and reports, the simplest solution would be to “allow the UN human rights commissioner to visit these sites” and urged a third party with as much authority as the UN commissioner to visit China.
Raab said the situation of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, including reports of forced labor and forced sterilization of women, is alarming, and that 38 countries have followed the UK’s lead in publicly criticizing and condemning China’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. Raab pointed out that although the level of “genocide” has not yet been reached, Britain should not conduct free trade negotiations with “countries that violate human rights”. According to foreign media reports, Raab’s remarks were a veiled attack on the European Union, which reached an investment agreement with China last month.
The U.K. introduced a bill last week that would allow the Home Office to impose large fines on companies that violate human rights while preventing products with forced labor in Xinjiang from reaching the U.K. market. China, for its part, asked Britain to stop interfering in the affairs of other countries after it announced the imposition of import restrictions.
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