British lawmakers on Thursday (April 22) unanimously identified the Communist Party’s crackdown on the Uighur and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang as genocide and condemned Beijing’s actions in the strongest possible terms. This has increased pressure on the Johnson administration to step up its criticism of Beijing.
After a debate, the British House of Commons on Thursday passed unopposed a motion by Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani calling the Uighurs in Xinjiang crimes against humanity and genocide.
The last time the British House of Commons made a genocide determination was in 2016, when MPs voted to make the Islamic State terrorist group’s actions against the Yazidis and other minorities in northern Syria genocide. The motion passed unanimously.
In January, the Trump administration ended its term by characterizing the Chinese Communist government’s crackdown in Xinjiang as genocide, a characterization the Biden administration supports. Just Wednesday, members of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a bipartisan resolution without dissent condemning the Chinese government’s genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.
The Canadian and Dutch parliaments have already passed motions that the Chinese Communist Party committed genocide in Xinjiang.
However, in a departure from the Biden administration’s approach, British Prime Minister Johnson’s government has again avoided declaring the human rights abuses taking place in Xinjiang as genocide. Ministers said any decision to declare genocide would have to be made by a court of law.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on Feb. 22 condemned the Communist Party’s use of “torture, forced labor and sterilization” against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, saying these acts are occurring on an “industrial scale.
So far, the British government has imposed sanctions on some Communist Party officials and introduced rules to try to block goods linked to the region from entering the supply chain, but most lawmakers want government ministers to go further.
Beijing denies allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying specifically rebutted U.S. determinations that the Communist government is committing genocide in Xinjiang during a regular press briefing on March 31.
She said, “The determination of genocide needs to go through authoritative and strict legal procedures, and to stand the test of facts and history. No country, organization or individual is qualified and empowered to arbitrarily determine that another country has committed ‘genocide. In international relations, no country can use this crime as a political label for credulity and malicious manipulation.”
Support for the motion is non-binding, meaning it is up to the Johnson administration to decide what action it will or will not take next.
Some British lawmakers are concerned that the U.K. risks falling out of step with its allies when it comes to the Chinese Communist Party. Some lawmakers have criticized the British government for not taking a tougher stance on Xinjiang in order to develop economic and trade ties with China.
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