China: Human Rights and Security

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing this timely debate, particularly in the context of the history of Hong Kong, and for his typically powerful introduction, which is only what your Lordships’ House would expect.

I begin this final debate of 2024 with a big-picture overview of the state of the world. Geopolitically, we are an unstable, dangerous mess. The climate is running out of control, overheating visibly and obviously, and nature and biodiversity are in a state of collapse. Human lives are going backwards, in terms of poverty, hunger and inequality. We are not doing well, and that is not because we have been derailed from some ongoing train of so-called development and progress. It is a product of the nature of politics around the world in recent decades, particularly in the hugely influential United States—and us, with our own UK influences. It is a legacy of colonialism and neocolonialism, extractivism and exploitation, the enriching of the few at the expense of the many.

That is not to say that there has not been real progress in the decades since World War II—progress driven by civil society, which has developed a framework of international norms, or what we generally call human rights. They were not given over to us by states but driven by campaigners who forced us forward. Civil society action has got us to that point, but it is dependent on government action really to put it into effect—and that means that Governments have to apply these frameworks of norms and human rights, applying the judgments without fear or favour, not using them as a stick with which to beat people we dislike while quietly ignoring what we see our friends and allies doing. I would love to see a debate in your Lordships’ House similar to this one but focused on the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia, which is every bit as bad as China.

Noble Lords have talked here, as I have in other contexts, about the situation with the horrendous genocide against the Uighurs and the situations in Tibet and Hong Kong, as well as the threats to Taiwan and in the South China Sea. I am not going to go back over that ground, because it has been covered well already. I want to take two different angles here. One is to say, as no one has yet said, that in this complex world, facing the threat of the planetary boundaries being exceeded, we have to talk to China. On the climate emergency and nature crisis, it is a crucially important actor. Of course, as a number of noble Lords have pointed out, it makes many of the products that we use every day; that is the trade to which the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, was just referring. We have to acknowledge that the responsibility for the environmental impacts of those objects that we use rests with us, as well as with China. We shall see in the coming year a real focus on a duty to prevent human rights abuses and environmental damage for our companies or supply chains. That is important to consider in this context. But it is really important to say that business interests, or indeed the need to talk about the climate and nature crisis, should not stop us from raising, at every opportunity, human rights in conversation with the Chinese regime. It should not stop us from deciding on sanctions or providing refuge to those seeking asylum from the Chinese regime.

It is important to note that this afternoon the Prime Minister in the Liaison Committee referred to safe and legal routes for people to find asylum in the UK. He said that he was happy with what we had now with Afghanistan, Ukraine and Hong Kong. I have a direct question to the Minister: surely we also want to provide safe and legal routes for people from other parts of China who might be seeking asylum in the UK to be able to come here. Hong Kong is enormously important, but it should not just be Hong Kong.

My second point is that the noble Lord’s Motion refers to China’s actions and government policy towards China. That may have been what the Table Office was happy to have, but I urge all noble Lords not to regard China as a single entity. China is not the Chinese regime. It is really important that we do not make ahistorical, orientalising assumptions about China as some unchanging, monolithic entity. I note that Human Rights Watch, for example, has a whole series of reports about how there have been protests within China, with terribly brave actions by people within China at great risk to themselves. Let us not talk about China but about the Chinese regime, and acknowledge that there are Chinese people, not just within the parts of China that we have identified but in other parts as well, who are taking action. I note that there are really brave feminist LGBTIQA+ activists in China who have paid a hideous price for taking actions in those areas.

Finally, I will change tone. Given that this is the final Green speech of the year, I offer thanks particularly to the staff who keep us going through these long and strange hours in which we work. I wish them and all noble Lords a merry Christmas and a happy new year.