Fri 23 April 2021:
“But there is a misunderstanding that genocide is just one act — mass killing. That is false,” she said. “All five criteria of genocide are evidenced as taking place in Xinjiang.”
British lawmakers voted to declare that China is committing genocide against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang province.
The motion passed on Thursday does not compel the government to act but is likely to mark a further decline in relations with China. In response, Beijing’s embassy in the UK accused the MPs of having “cooked up” the motion “with a view to discrediting and attacking China”.
The all-party but non-binding motion adds significant political pressure on the Chinese government.
The vote, which was held and passed in the House of Commons, the lower house of the British parliament, called on the government to “fulfil their obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide and all relevant instruments of international law to bring it to an end.”
The US previously declared that China’s treatment of Uyghurs was genocide, as have Canada and the Netherlands.
Nigel Adams, the Asia minister, admitted there was credible evidence of widespread use of forced labour, internment camps, and the targeting of ethnic groups. The actions amounted to clear and systematic abuse of human rights, but he said the UK’s longstanding position was that determining genocide is for “competent national and international courts”.
Former Conservative Party leader and Chinese government critic Iain Duncan Smith told parliament, however: “The UK government has said endlessly — and I understand this — that only a competent court can declare genocide. That is absolutely the original plan.”
“But the problem is that getting to a competent court is impossible,” he said. “At the United Nations, it is impossible to get through to the International Court of Justice, it is impossible to get through to the International Criminal Court as China is not a signatory to that and therefore will not obey that.”
“We will not gain any particular friendship by not calling out genocide from the Chinese,” he added.
Nusrat Ghani, the author of the motion and a former Conservative minister, said: “The work does not stop here. We cannot continue business as usual with China while these atrocities continue. The government must now act urgently to ensure our supply chains are not tainted by goods made with Uyghur forced labour.”
She told MPs during the debate: “For many, the word will forever be associated with the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, and I agree with colleagues that we should never diminish the unique meaning or power of this term by applying it incorrectly.”
“But there is a misunderstanding that genocide is just one act — mass killing. That is false,” she said. “All five criteria of genocide are evidenced as taking place in Xinjiang.”
Ghani is one of seven British politicians sanctioned by China in retaliation for the UK joining others in sanctioning Chinese individuals for links to human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
China denied
China’s embassy in the UK condemned Thursday’s declaration, accusing MPs of having “cooked up” the motion in order to discredit China. It said claims of genocide in Xinjiang were “the most preposterous lie of the century, an outrageous insult and affront to the Chinese people, and a gross breach of international law and the basic norms governing international relations”.
It denied its policies in Xinjiang constituted either genocide or crimes against humanity – a finding published by Human Rights Watch earlier this week – and were instead “counter-violent terrorism, de-radicalisation and anti-separatism”.
After the motion passed, Nusrat Ghani said: “China’s attempt to intimidate parliament into silence has backfired. The elected House has spoken and chose to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our international allies, the Uyghur people, and all those who have been sanctioned.
“Our hard-won parliamentary democracy will always stand up for what is right and remain free from foreign interference.”
