Beijing has been accused of committing serious human rights abuses against the Uighurs in Xinjiang.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Rabb on Jan. 12 slammed Beijing’s “deplorable” treatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang and said British companies would face hefty fines if they engage in human rights abuses in China.
The Foreign Secretary told the British House of Commons on the afternoon of January 12 that British companies will have to meet requirements to show that their supply chains are free of forced labor in Xinjiang province, according to the Daily Mail.
The Beijing government is accused of widespread abuses, including allegations of forced sterilization, slave labor and mass detentions, in the homeland of 12 million Uighur Muslims.
The Uighur community is reportedly being forced to pick cotton in Xinjiang province, raising concerns that British consumers may be inadvertently buying ethically tainted goods.
Mr. Raab said companies will receive strong guidance on how to conduct due diligence to ensure they do not source products in Xinjiang that are tainted with human rights abuses.
He told MPs that human rights abuses in Xinjiang were “distressing” and that the UK had a “moral responsibility. “Detention camps, arbitrary detention, political re-education, forced labor, torture and forced sterilization, all on an industrial scale,” he said.
“This is truly shocking. The barbarism that we had hoped would disappear into another era is being practiced today in one of the leading members of the international community of which we speak.”
Under the Modern Slavery Act (MSA), companies with a turnover of more than £36 million are required to publish a statement setting out what they have done to ensure their supply chains are free of slavery.
For those companies that do not comply, they face the threat of large fines, details of which will be announced at a later date. Lucrative government contracts will only be awarded to companies that comply with their obligations to ensure their supply chains are not linked to Xinjiang.
Export controls will also be reviewed to prevent British companies from supplying products to refugee camps in Xinjiang. Ministers are understood to be considering tighter export controls on British exports of goods and technology to China, and these controls will include consideration of whether they could be used to repress the population.
Mr. Raab said, “In the UK, we must act to ensure that British businesses are not part of the supply chain that leads to the gates of detention facilities in Xinjiang. And to ensure that products from labor camps where human rights abuses have taken place do not end up on the shelves of the supermarkets where we shop for our families every week.”
The government’s platform of measures, however, threatens to halt sanctions against individual Chinese officials suspected of being responsible for human rights abuses.
There is growing evidence from campaign groups that more than a million Uighur men are being forced into “re-education camps,” with satellite images showing what many look like factory buildings and Uighur women being forcibly sterilized.
Magnitsky Act Sanctions
Conservative lawmakers welcomed filibuster’s plan to strengthen the law, but also urged him to do more. Duncan Smith, former Conservative leader and chairman of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said that he would not be able to do more. Sir Iain Duncan Smith, called on ministers to use the new “Magnitsky” powers to sanction the Chinese for their involvement in the crackdown.
He told the Daily Telegraph: “The Foreign Office is stunned by the fact that it has upset the Chinese. The government must show moral leadership and take some action for the right reasons, even in the face of reduced trade.”
Duncan B. Sir Smith and Nus Ghani, a former minister and Conservative MP, will spearhead amendments to the Trade Bill later this month, which will give the British courts a role in determining whether human rights abuses have been committed with countries before trade agreements are signed.
It is understood that the British government has resisted the involvement of British courts in determining genocide overseas, which insiders believe is the responsibility of the International Criminal Court.
Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary, also questioned why sanctions were not imposed on officials responsible for “appalling” human rights abuses.
She told Mr. Raab in the House of Commons, “Once again, the power of his words does not match the power of his actions, and I’m sorry to say that [sanctioning Chinese Communist Party officials] is what sends a loud and clear message to Beijing.”
Conservative Human Rights Committee to release report
The Conservative Human Rights Committee will release a report on Jan. 13 that takes China to task for crimes of torture, slavery, surveillance, forced television confessions, and arbitrary disappearances and detentions, including in relation to Uighurs.
The report was endorsed by a range of senior Conservative figures, including former Conservative Foreign Secretaries Lord Hague of Richmond and Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Lord Patten of Barnes, the last Governor of Hong Kong, and Tom Tugendhat, Chairman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee.
The report accuses the Chinese Communist Party of “deception, brutality, inhumanity, untrustworthiness and criminality” and calls for a “coordinated and comprehensive review” of British and Chinese policy.
Relations between London and Beijing have become increasingly strained in recent months over Beijing’s human rights and civil rights abuses.
Last week, after the Chinese Communist Party arrested 53 pro-democracy activists, filibustered the move as a “serious attack” on Hong Kong’s rights and freedoms and accused the Communist Party of “deliberately misleading the world” for the purpose of imposing tough national security laws on Hong Kong.
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