Lord Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong, and 103 cross-party members of the British Parliament signed a letter to British Prime Minister Johnson on Tuesday (13). The letter, obtained by RTHK, shows that the more than 100 British MPs demanded that the government invoke the Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act to sanction officials and entities that suppress the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, and to sanction officials who violate the human rights of the Uighur people in Xinjiang, especially Chen Quanguo, secretary of the Xinjiang Party Committee.
Signatories include former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith, Conservative MP Tim Loughton and Lord Alton of the House of Lords, as well as Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy and Shadow Minister of State for Asia and the Pacific Stephen Kinnock, who were sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party. Kinnock).
The letter states that they objected to last month’s sanctions against British lawmakers, saying that they showed that the Chinese Communist Party was expanding its authoritarianism and attacking the democratic representatives of the West, and that there was a need to join forces to take a strong response, including expanding the sanctions list. The letter also states that the so-called “golden age” of Sino-British relations has passed, and they urge the British government to immediately review and develop a comprehensive cross-sectoral strategy to address the Chinese government’s growing challenge to the free world.
On March 22, 2021, the UK, together with the EU, the US and Canada, sanctioned four Xinjiang officials and the Public Security Bureau of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps over Beijing’s human rights abuses against the Uighur people in Xinjiang, which Foreign Secretary Lan Tao Wen said at the time was the first time the UK had sanctioned Chinese Communist Party officials.
Four days later, the Chinese Foreign Ministry imposed “counter-sanctions” on nine individuals and four groups in the United Kingdom.
The former leader of the Conservative Party, Shi Zhi’an, who was sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party, responded in a tweet that “it is our responsibility to speak out against the Chinese government’s violations of human rights in Hong Kong and the genocide of the Uighurs. If the Chinese Communist Party takes its anger out on me, I will wear this badge of honor.
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