UK-Taiwan Friendship and Co-operation

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I am enormously grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. What he is putting so well is the very many shared values we have with Taiwan, the sort of freedom, openness and innovation that the people of Hong Kong used to enjoy as well. That is surely a template for what the Chinese Communist party would like to do with Taiwan if ever it had the opportunity to do so. Does he share my great fear? The great design of President Xi, as he has made no pretence of hiding, is what he calls the reunification of China, which could only mean bringing the freedom-loving and freedom-enjoying people of Taiwan under the jackboot of the Chinese Communist party, and inflict on them the same form of intimidation and oppression the people of Tibet, Xinjiang and now the people of Hong Kong are sadly seeing?

[Bob Stewart]

My very good and hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have said in the Chamber before that if China was to develop a model much like Taiwan, it would be to the benefit of China. Taiwan is the beacon. It is a hugely successful economy. It is good news that there are some 13,000 Taiwanese students in British universities, with 4,000 at postgraduate level. By way of return, which I think is very interesting, there are an increasing number of British students studying in Taiwan. They are mainly learning Mandarin, of course.

Uyghur Tribunal Judgment

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I am delighted to be able to speak in this debate—yet another on China’s abuse of human rights. They are virtually a weekly event in this place, which is good. It is also good that many hon. Members from all parties—a growing number—are here in support of this cause, although I am surprised not to see the hon. Members for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) and for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), who take such an interest in Chinese matters, as we recently learned.

Yesterday in the Lords, Lord Alton of Liverpool, a fellow sanctioned Member—perhaps I ought to declare an interest as a sanctioned Member of the House—made allegations that China has subverted our legislative programme by persuading Members of their lordships’ House to table amendments to an Act of Parliament. That was a serious allegation into which I hope the House authorities will now look, and it again underlines the danger that the Chinese state, the Chinese Communist party and its various tentacles pose even in the heart of democracy. We heard about that earlier in the week in the welcome urgent question granted by Mr Speaker and his welcome comments about ensuring the security of hon. Members in this place to protect them from the Chinese Government.

In the Minister’s response, I ask that she addresses the fact that we are still waiting for an answer to why the Government have given £80,000 of UK taxpayers’ money to an academic to produce a report on the China hawks—that is us—to lay bare some of the criticising parties who have given oxygen to all the horrendous things committed by China. That is being funded by UK taxpayers, which is outrageous and an insult to the freedom of speech which we cherish in this place and for which we have been sanctioned by the Chinese Government.

The incredible work of the Uyghur Tribunal is to be applauded, disseminated, publicised and spoken about at every opportunity. I repeat the praise by my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) and congratulate her again on leading on the issue in the House. Sir Geoffrey Nice did a fantastic job and gave a moving and landmark judgment on 9 December.

The tribunal was carried out to the highest standard of proof with very qualified experts and witnesses from numerous fields giving valuable evidence. One might say that Sir Geoffrey Nice’s conclusions were quite timid or conservative compared with what they could have been, so in no way can the judgment be seen as sensationalist or unrealistic—quite the reverse. It was a finding of fact.



This House was right to move the motion, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden and passed on 22 April, that recognised the Chinese genocide against the Uyghurs. This House was right to pass unanimously my motion in favour of a diplomatic boycott, which I think we now have, although it is not entirely clear that it is a full diplomatic boycott, on 13 July. I welcome much of the Government’s action, as far as it goes, although those two motions were led by Back Benchers, not by the Government in Government time.

I congratulate the Government on some of their words of condemnation of what has been done by the Chinese Government, and I congratulate them on the sanctions that have been introduced, but there have not been nearly enough. The name of Chen Quanguo has been mentioned as the architect of repression in Tibet, which is now being repeated in Xinjiang. I welcome the business restrictions that have been brought in for those companies trading in Xinjiang to ensure that they are compliant with section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. I also welcome the measures recently introduced on the financing of infrastructure projects so that we do not have to rely on the deep pockets of China’s sovereign funds. In the UN, the UK has led on the condemnation of China human rights abuses. We have called for unfettered access to Xinjiang and other parts of China for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which of course has been denied. Those measures do not go far enough.

The Chinese Government are in denial. What did the Chinese spokesman say about the “so-called” Uyghur Tribunal? They claimed it was funded by the “terrorist and separatist” organisation, the World Uyghur Congress, and nothing but a

“political tool used by a few anti-China and separatist elements to deceive and mislead the public…The ‘Tribunal’ and its so-called ‘conclusions’ are mere clumsy shows staged by anti-China elements for their self-entertainment. Anyone with conscience and reason will not be deceived or fooled”.

I do not call the revelations that we heard in the Uyghur Tribunal—from women who had been raped, tortured and abused, and people who had been imprisoned and had their lives completely ruined—self-entertainment. The response of the Chinese Government, who are constantly in denial, is absolutely disgraceful, which is why it is so important that we continue to call them out in this place and beyond, and that we act with other fair-minded democracies and free nations around the world and their Governments to continue calling it out. There have to be implications resulting from this. It is not enough just to call it out.

Let us look at what the tribunal came up with. It is worth mentioning a few of its findings, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden has already done.

“Hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs…have been detained by PRC authorities without any, or any remotely sufficient reason, and subjected to acts of unconscionable cruelty, depravity and inhumanity.”

It found that many had been “tortured for no reason”, “detained in cages” and

“shackled by heavy metal weights”.

It also found:

“Detained women—and men—have been raped and subjected to extreme sexual violence…Detainees were subjected to solitary confinement in cells…At ‘classes’ in detention centres, detainees were forced to learn and sing songs in praise of the CCP…Detainees were forced to take medicines by mouth or by injection that affected reproductive functioning of women and possibly of men”.

Pregnant women were forced to have abortions, as my hon. Friend mentioned. The report also found evidence of “intense monitoring” and “surveillance” of Uyghur people:

“Neighbours, members of families and other members of the community were incentivised or coerced in various ways to spy on each other.”

Many people have been disappeared. It is not just famous tennis players who get disappeared. They are the ones we know about, but so many others are just disappeared. The report also found:

“Children as young as a few months were separated from their families and placed in orphanages or state-run boarding schools.”

Such cruelty to family life. It goes on:

“A systematic programme of birth control measures had been established forcing women to endure removal against their will of wombs and to undergo effective sterilization by means of IUDs which were only removeable by surgical means…Uyghur women have been coerced into marrying Han men with refusal running them the risk of imprisonment for themselves or their families.

‘Family friends’—mostly Han men—have been imposed on Uyghur households for weeks at a time to monitor and report on the households’ thoughts and behaviours”—

of those Uyghur families, while:

“A large-scale enforced transfer of labour programme…emblems of Muslim faith were removed…acts of faith were punished…The use of the Uyghur language has been punished”

and restricted, while

“assets have been arbitrarily appropriated by”

the authorities, and there have been “relocation of occupiers”, or large-scale displacements, and intimidation of Uyghur families living outside China.

I was glad that the Home Secretary, in her response this week, agreed with the allegations about the intimidation of the diaspora of Chinese people and Uyghurs living around the world. The Foreign Office has also admitted to the harassment that has been going on in the UK, to intimidate people into silence. That, absolutely, needs to be reported to the police.

Those are all things that the tribunal found. President Xi Jinping is at the top of those who have the responsibility, the culpability, for what is going on. He bears the primary responsibility. Those things are the direct result of policies, language and speeches promoted by President Xi and others. Furthermore, those policies could not have happened in a country with such rigid hierarchies as the People’s Republic of China without implicit and explicit authority from the very top. Let us lay the blame where it belongs. We do not take issue with the Chinese people; we take issue with the Chinese Communist party Government, which is responsible for all the pain that they are causing and have caused to so many.

The tribunal decided:

“Torture of Uyghurs attributable to the”

Chinese Communist Government

“is established beyond reasonable doubt…Crimes against humanity attributable to the”

Chinese Communist Government

“is established beyond reasonable doubt”,

and,

“on the basis of evidence heard in public, the Tribunal is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the”

Chinese Communist Government

“by the imposition of measures to prevent births intended to destroy a significant part of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang as such, has committed genocide.”

There is no getting away from it—there is no denying it, as the Chinese Government would have us do.

It is therefore important that we take the step today to acknowledge the truth that the Uyghur tribunal has uncovered and that we redouble our pressure on our Government and other Governments to ensure that there are implications for those findings. Virtually every day—I have a clutch of press cuttings from the past few weeks—there are stories about the malign influence of the Chinese Government throughout the world: opposition who are disappeared, or people who just spoke out against sexual abuse; instances of Chinese agents spying on students in our universities; Beijing-backed students harassing pro-democracy activists on our university campuses; threats to Taiwan internationally; or building fake US battleships for war games and target practice.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case, as many, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani), have. Does he not think that, if the Government do not lead on that, they open the door to universities, businesses and others to fall away from doing anything and not taking a lead? For example, he mentioned universities. The key point there is that, when we speak to them, they all claim that they did not really think that it was up to them to do it; it was up to the leadership of the Government. The Government will set the terms, and we will start to clean the system once that happens.

[Tim Loughton]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Leadership from the Government is essential. All of us—certainly the three musketeers on the Conservative Benches who are sanctioned—have asked repeatedly for a proper audit of the tentacles of the Chinese Communist party, which extend into our boardrooms, our university campuses, our schools, our businesses and Parliament, as we saw with the exposé earlier this week. The Government must take a lead in the country and for other like-minded nations, which need to be able to act together. Through the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which my right hon. Friend admirably co-chairs, bringing parliamentarians together who are now prepared to speak out and act in unison across the world will have and is having an impact.

We must redouble those efforts after all the revelations that we have heard about the malign influence of the Chinese Communist Government across the world, culminating in the recent speech by Richard Moore, the head of MI6, about the China threat that we all face.

What is to be done? Today, we need to get the Government to face up to, acknowledge and agree to our international obligations under the law of genocide. To repeat the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden made, the United Kingdom is a party to the genocide convention. All state parties to the genocide convention are under an obligation to refrain from taking an active part in the crime of genocide and, additionally, to prevent the commission of genocide by others, using all means reasonably available and within their power. That includes situations in which one state alone would be unable to prevent genocide but in which its actions in combination with the efforts of other states may do so.

The obligation to take concrete steps to prevent genocide is triggered

“at the instant that the State learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed”

or is already being committed. The UK is on notice and has the requisite awareness of the serious risk that genocide is being committed or will be committed against the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region of China and is therefore under an obligation to act to prevent that genocide. It could not be clearer.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman comes to the nub of the matter. This is an appropriate moment to remind ourselves why the genocide convention is framed in such a way: because throughout history, when genocide has happened, we have always played catch-up and said that we did not know. We live in a very different world now, in which we do know; that is why we have the obligation, which has now been triggered, to act. We can call it out in the House, but only the Government can act.

[Tim Loughton]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right and has been a doughty champion of the cause. We cannot stand by and wait for further atrocities to happen. We are under a duty to trigger the processes that recognise that genocide has been and is still being committed, and to take appropriate actions to counter it. That is absolutely clear. I cannot envisage anything the Government could say in response today that would get them out of that obligation, now that the evidence has so clearly, so starkly and so skilfully been put forward by Sir Geoffrey Nice.

That is our first requirement, but there are other things that the Government can do. Following the lead taken in the United States with the recent Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden mentioned, we have a Bill on the Order Paper: the Tibet and Xinjiang (Reciprocal Access) Bill, which has specific sanctions that we can bring to bear against Chinese Government officials to reinforce the point that we are absolutely serious. We need further high-ranking officials, starting with Chen Quanguo, to be sanctioned to show that we are absolutely clear about who is responsible for the ongoing haranguing and victimisation of the Uyghur people.

This must happen. I have no doubt that at the end of the debate we shall all will it to happen, with no votes demurring, but the Government must take the lead. They must do what they are required to do under international law and under the moral duty that we have all recognised today and stand up for those people who are still being victimised by the horrendous torture meted out by the Chinese Communist party Government.

Magnitsky Sanctions: Human Rights Abuses

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I do not know whether I have to declare an interest as a fellow sanctioned MP. Slightly ironically, it means that I have a negative financial interest in this issue, because if I had any assets in China they would have been frozen, but let me put that on the record for good measure.

I know that I am very much the secondary or support act to the two proposers of the motion: my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). I congratulate them on securing this debate and on their work with the all-party parliamentary group. This is a really important subject and I am very proud that we have taken a lead with the Magnitsky sanctions that have already been announced. However, I am frustrated that we have not gone further and faster, and if the APPG can continue to put pressure on the Government to do so, it will be doing very good work indeed.

We must become a leader in the way in which we apply and enact Magnitsky sanctions, to encourage as many other like-minded Governments around the world as possible to follow suit. It is really important that we maintain a multilateral and co-ordinated approach, so that the impact is such that the targets of the sanctions and the countries in which, in most cases, they are part of the regime simply have to sit up and take note, causing them maximum disturbance, annoyance and inconvenience. It is really important that we do not just name people under Magnitsky sanctions, but follow through to make sure that they are very effective and have the desired impacts, so that they are not just a box-ticking exercise. We should also be doing a lot more to investigate their assets. I am afraid that London has too often become the home to some of those despotic regimes and the despotic people who prop them up through property and other, largely hidden, assets. We should be redoubling our efforts to investigate the laundering of money through London, particularly the London property market.

I am not going to alarm the Hansard Reporters by going through a whole list of names that are difficult to pronounce and even harder to spell, but I will reinforce the references made by both opening speakers to Chen Quanguo, the architect of the genocide in Tibet. It is under his watch that many of the more than 1 million Tibetans who have lost their lives since the invasion by the Chinese Communist party Government back in 1959 have died. He has overseen the eclipse of the teaching of the language, the culture, and the religion of many ethnic Tibetans, putting hundreds of thousands of nomadic farmers—who were simply getting on with their lives in the ways that generations of their ancestors have done for centuries—into concentration camps under the guise of retraining, slaughtering their herds and forcing them into a Sinicised lifestyle that is very alien to many of those people. That was the training ground for what he is now doing in Xinjiang, and we have heard all about the forced sterilisation, the concentration camps—let us call them out for what they are—the slave labour farming of cotton, and other things.

Magnitsky sanctions must be just the start of our clamping down on all of those things. There is a limit to what we can do, but we can have trade boycotts, we can have limitations on businesses doing business in certain parts of the world, and we can, I hope, have a full diplomatic boycott of China’s winter Olympics. When the Prime Minister refers to an effective boycott, and the Foreign Secretary repeats those words in a meeting I was in a little earlier, that can only mean a full boycott, which must include diplomats based in Beijing. It would be absurd if UK Ministers, officials and members of the Royal Family did not go to China but our ambassador in Beijing still turned up to the Olympics, as she apparently wants to. That must be made absolutely clear.

The second person I will re-emphasise, who has already been mentioned, is Carrie Lam. It is inconceivable that she should not be on a list, given that we are seeing the impact of the oppression that is snuffing out freedom, liberty and entrepreneurship in that country now, because many Hong Kong citizens are already coming to this country. We welcome them, and we will welcome many more who are fleeing the crushing abuses against their freedoms.

I will conclude—leaving plenty of time for all of our questions to be answered—by asking three questions of the Minister. First, how does the Foreign Office decide who goes on the sanctions list? What information does it require? Is there some sort of algorithm that decides it? If so, the list that the algorithm has come up with does not, strangely, include some names. What more could we, including the APPG, do to provide information that might make the Foreign Office’s job easier, making sure that the right people and more people go on that list?

Secondly, and really importantly, how do we co-ordinate our list with other countries? I know that when the initial Magnitsky names were announced, it was on the same day as some announcements were made by the EU and the US. As I said earlier, it is really important that these sanctions are internationally co-ordinated, but there is a question as to why the UK has sanctioned only 24% of the individuals and entities already sanctioned under the Magnitsky sanctions regime of the United States. We have common interests and we share the same values, so why have we not applied those sanctions to three quarters of the people who the United States thinks they should be applied to? Have we just not got round to it yet? Is the Foreign Office under-resourced in examining their credentials? Do we not trust the judgment of our allies in the United States? Some explanation of how the system works would be helpful because this is a really important innovation and a powerful tool that the UK can proudly use to stand up for the values, freedoms and liberties that we take for granted here, but which, alas, many other countries do not. Working with those like-minded countries, we can bring the change, and the freedom and the liberty, to many people who do not enjoy the luxuries that we do in this country.

AUKUS: Impact on Anglo-Chinese Relations

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I am impressed with the force of what my hon. Friend has said so far. As one of the seven parliamentarians who wears the badge of honour of having been sanctioned by the Chinese Government, we would be delighted to welcome him to our numbers and to present him physically with a badge for that extraordinary honour, which has been bestowed on us counterproductively by the Chinese Communist party.

I agree with everything my hon. Friend has said. He has not yet touched on the question of Taiwan. Filling in atolls with cement is a serious breach of international law and we should be concerned about it; the constant flying over by Chinese jets into Taiwanese airspace, which has accelerated recently, is a much more aggressive, bellicose and worrying act. Does he agree and will he mention that in his comments?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I was aware that my hon. Friend was one of those esteemed colleagues to have been sanctioned already by the Chinese Communist regime, and it would be an honour to serve alongside him with that accolade. Yes, of course I will be coming on to Taiwan. He anticipated that key issue, which I intend to raise. Some of us Conservative MPs enjoy regular meetings with the Taiwanese ambassador at his embassy, where we listen to Taiwan’s perspective, and I appreciate doing that.

My hon. Friend also mentioned the word “communist”. Of the 365 elected at the last election, I am the sole Conservative MP who was born in a communist country, so I know what communism is. I used to go back to communist Poland to see my beloved grandfather in the 1980s, when martial law was in place and General Jaruzelski—the Soviet puppet who was controlling Poland—was running the show, so I know what the communists are and I know what they are capable of. Let us not forget that under the veneer of China’s highly flourishing capitalist society, there beats the heart of a rigid communist politburo that seeks to control its own people in a way that is completely unacceptable, and is unimaginable here in the United Kingdom.

Yes, to answer my hon. Friend, the former Japanese ambassador came to my office to highlight to me personally the ongoing and increasing violations of Japanese airspace by many Chinese planes, deliberately invading that airspace and testing the Japanese resolve. My hon. Friend also highlighted Taiwan, and I will take a moment to pay tribute to the President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen. That lady has demonstrated a huge amount of courage, fortitude and bravery in how she has stood up for the people of Taiwan, and she is not prepared to be bullied by China. In terms of size, it is like comparing a mouse with a lion: Taiwan is tiny and has microscopic military resources compared with communist China, yet it is determined to maintain its independence and fulfil the wishes of the representatives who have been democratically elected by the Taiwanese people.

We must stand by the Taiwanese people. This is the equivalent of what was going on in central and eastern Europe under communism, and it was Margaret Thatcher coming to the Gdansk shipyards in 1987 and 1988 that gave the succour to Lech Wałęsa to carry on, despite all the odds that were stacked against him. He said that in a television interview: “The communists came this close to destroying Solidarity. We were about to give up, but it was the help and solidarity that came from Britain, particularly Margaret Thatcher, and the resources that were sent from Britain to help us in our struggle for freedom and democracy that gave us the will to carry on and ultimately bring communism down.” As my hon. Friends will know, when that domino effect of communist regimes crumbling started in 1989, it started in Warsaw, the city of my birth.

My hon. Friend the Minister is doing a splendid job in her new position at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office—I watch her international trips and the statements that she makes, and I have every confidence in her. However, as a Minister in the Foreign Office, she will know that the Chinese have recently been shooting and killing Indian soldiers on their border with India. China is getting into an increasing number of border disputes with India, and of course, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), and others have been at the forefront of highlighting the suppression of the Uyghurs in western China.

From everything that my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham and his colleagues have said, I am sure that he will agree with me—he must intervene if he does not—that what is happening to the Uyghurs is equivalent to ethnic cleansing. The Chinese Communist Government are trying to ethnically cleanse millions of people from western China in order to be able to control that territory, and if we are going to turn a blind eye to that sort of activity—ethnic cleansing on an industrial scale—what is the point of our having stood up to Serbia and the other countries in 1991?

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is being very generous. The only thing I disagree with is that it is not just ethnic cleansing; it is genocide, and of course, this House has voted to acknowledge the genocide that is still going on in Xinjiang province against the Uyghur people. It is not just the Uyghur people, either: this has been happening against the Tibetans since 1959, and is starting to happen in Hong Kong as well. The Chinese Communist party has form and needs to be called out, so I am glad my hon. Friend is contributing to that today.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. In fact, I was being rather contrite and measured in referring to the policy as ethnic cleansing. He is of course correct, and I will utilise his word: what is going on in western China is genocide.

I will repeat what our Government, the Prime Minister and others have said. I saw something in the media this week. The Prime Minister said we must not discount Chinese investment in our country. I understand we are in a precarious economic situation. I understand that it is tempting to accept tens or hundreds of billions of dollars from China, but, as I will come on to say, China has a 1,000-year strategy to control global economies, and we must not fall into the trap.

Again, I agree with my hon. Friend. I am old enough to remember the agreement that Margaret Thatcher signed in December 1984. In that meticulous agreement that we entered into with the Chinese, my understanding is that we did not have to give up all the territory, but we did it for one country, two systems, and China has completely trashed that agreement—not after 100 or 200 years, but just a few short decades—and it has been put in the bin. The most heartbreaking thing that I heard the other day was a young man from Hong Kong who said to me, “We have come to expect and we have acclimatised ourselves to smelling tear gas on our streets on a daily basis.” The Chinese intend to do everything possible to snuff out and destroy the embryonic stages of a democratic movement in Hong Kong. Yes, we have a responsibility to the Uyghurs and to our other partners in the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, which we will be joining, but—goodness me—we have no greater responsibility to anybody in that region than we do to the people of Hong Kong who have stood with us and fought with us for generations.

If an MP has the temerity to challenge the dangerous conduct of China, they will, as I have said, be put on a sanctions list. I am extremely pleased that Mr Speaker has now banned the Chinese ambassador from entering this House. It is extraordinary that the ambassador from a fellow permanent member of the United Nations Security Council cannot step into this building. I applaud the courage and bravery of our Speaker. It is intolerable for us to allow the Chinese ambassador into this building while hon. Friends such as my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham is put on the sanctions list and is threatened, bullied and intimidated. What signal would we send to the Chinese if we allowed the Chinese ambassador to come here and enjoy our receptions and debates, and have the privilege of being able to lobby Members of Parliament, when our own colleagues are being sanctioned?

I now come to AUKUS, which is the purpose of this debate.

Cyber-attack: Microsoft

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

The hon. Gentleman may not have been at his screen during departmental questions, but the Foreign Secretary was in the House earlier and spoke about the UK’s posture with regard to China.

The simple fact is, as I said earlier, that we are acutely aware of the challenges and threats, but we are also aware of the significant position that China takes in the world. We have to be realistic in our response, and we have to work internationally. That is why I am pleased that the 39 countries represented in yesterday’s statement spoke with one voice, and we will continue to work with our international partners to try to drive an improvement in the behaviour of China and to make it clear to China that the countries with which it seeks to work expect a change in behaviour. We will take actions to support that.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

The SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith), is right: homeopathic remedies do not work when we are dealing with a psychopathic regime. We have had industrial-scale human rights abuses, industrial-scale buying of influence in our boardrooms, universities and schools, and now industrial-scale cyber-hacking of our computer systems.

The Minister has quite rightly said there is widespread and credible evidence that this is a state-backed actor and state-backed sabotage, so where is the beef? Where are the practical consequences for the Chinese communist Government? What officials will be prosecuted or sanctioned? If he will not tell us if, will he tell us when we will get a decision on the Olympics, on which this House voted unanimously last Thursday?

[James Cleverly]

I am disappointed that my hon. Friend echoes the rather flat joke made by the hon. Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith). [Interruption.] I am glad the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is laughing, but I regard this as quite an important issue.

The sanctions we imposed on the human rights abusers in Xinjiang are not homeopathic. The fact that we have granted visas to British national Hong Kong Chinese is not homeopathic. We are taking action, not all of which I can discuss at this Dispatch Box. As I say, we will continue to work with our international partners to make sure that, collectively and collaboratively, we send a very clear message that there are patterns of behaviour that are unacceptable, and we strongly urge China to change its position and to come into line with international norms, values and standards.

Beijing Winter Olympics and Chinese Government Sanctions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House believes that the 2022 Winter Olympic games should not be hosted in a country whose Government is credibly accused of mass atrocity crimes; and calls on the UK Government to decline invitations for its representatives to attend the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games unless the Government of the People’s Republic of China ends the atrocities taking place in the Xinjiang region and lifts the sanctions imposed on UK Parliamentarians, citizens and entities.

I presume the time limit does not apply to me, Madam Deputy Speaker. I must first declare an interest, as one of the sanctioned—I wear my badge of honour today—although any financial interest that I would have to declare would no doubt have been frozen by the Chinese Government. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving us time for this very important subject.

As a spotty school student back in 1980, I proposed a motion at a local school debating competition that the UK Government should not boycott the Moscow summer Olympics, following the invasion of Afghanistan over the previous Christmas, and that politics should be kept out of sport. As it turned out, Mrs Thatcher, the Prime Minister at the time, recommended a boycott, but it was left up to the individual sporting bodies whether they sent athletes from their sports to the games. Those who competed did so under the Olympic flag, and the few gold medals that we won were collected to the strains of the choral cantata that is the Olympic anthem. My overriding memory of those Olympic games was the image of Daley Thompson emotionally collecting his decathlon gold medal and belting out “God Save the Queen” to the tune of the rather dreary Olympic hymn. Sixty-five countries carried out a full boycott of the 1980 Olympics, including such strange bedfellows as the US and Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia, and China. China condemned the Russians, sent no athletes and subsequently did not appear on the medal table, so China really does not have a leg to stand on when it finds itself on the end of the same treatment that it meted out to its neighbour back in 1980.

My view on sporting boycotts and keeping politics out of sport has not changed, which is why this motion does not call for a full sporting boycott, which victimises most the elite athletes who dedicate so much to compete every four years, however niche the UK’s medal prospects might be at the winter Olympics compared with the summer version. But the simple reality is that in this day and age sport is inextricably linked with, and often tainted by, politics whether we like it or not, and that taint sometimes can be no greater than when the event is hosted under the Olympic banner.

Most countries will bid for the honour of hosting the Olympics so that they can showcase their nation to the world as an impressive player on the world stage—a land of progress and plenty, where everything is just rosy and all the criticisms that we hear about them are baseless propaganda. I am sure we were guilty of some of that when London hosted the 2012 Olympics, especially in the visually and financially extravagant opening and closing ceremonies, which reminded the world why the United Kingdom is the top nation. The difference was that our people were free to criticise that extravaganza if they disapproved. Our press was free to caricature or lampoon it, as some did, especially Paul McCartney’s singing, and we in this place were free to tackle Ministers about whether it was money well spent and whether we actually wanted it.

In the same way, hon. and right hon. Members in this House are free to speak out against abuses at home or abroad, human rights or otherwise, as freely happened, including with the recent reports by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee on the Uyghur situation. In the same way, the House has spoken out about the grotesque oppression, torture and murder of more than a million peace-loving Tibetans at the hands of the Chinese Communist party since the occupation of 1959. In the same way, too, we have called out the industrial-scale human rights abuses against the Uyghur people—the slave labour camps in Xinjiang, the forced sterilisation of Uyghur woman—all leading to a motion unanimously passed in this House on 22 April, thanks to the good services of my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani), which called out those inhuman acts for what they are, namely, genocide, committed by the hand of the Chinese Communist Government, who in just 200 days’ time will be welcoming the world to the temporary mirage that is a free Beijing, as the goose-stepping battalions of the People’s Liberation Army take ownership of the Olympic rings and run the Olympic flag up their flagpole.

Any dissent, any protest and any adverse publicity will be cancelled, crushed and disappeared, just as the Chinese Government tried to suppress the free speech that is the hallmark of parliamentary democracy and to bully five Members of this House, including me, and two noble Lords, by responding to our exposé of their abuses by sanctioning us in the misguided belief that we would shut up and go away. Now we are apparently to be subject to China’s new counter-foreign sanctions law, too.

Of course, the opposite was true; we have been louder than ever. The crimes of the Chinese Government have been under more scrutiny in this place and beyond, as China’s counterproductive miscalculation of what democracy counts for in the west has instead acted as a recruiting sergeant for decent people across the globe determined to call the Chinese Government out as the murderous bully they are.

We should be in no doubt about the real agenda behind China’s enthusiasm to host the Olympics for the second time. The Chinese propaganda machine is being ratcheted up for this historic event, which will make the Chinese capital the first city to host both a summer and winter Olympic games. The spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Wang Wenbin, has been boasting that

“the majority of countries and people in the world recognise the fact that China’s human rights conditions are constantly improving and China has achieved notable progress in its human rights cause”—

a claim that would embarrass even the Iraqi spokesman Comical Ali, of Gulf war notoriety.

We know what the Chinese Government will use the Winter Olympics for, as they showed quite clearly at the summer Olympics in Beijing in 2008. They proudly boasted that with 105 Heads of State and Government there, it was the largest gathering of world leaders for a sporting event in world history—until 2012, that is. The People’s Liberation Army Navy Band performed the nationalistic “Welcome March” and goose-stepped across the arena. Some 56 Chinese children, representing supposedly the 56 ethnic groups of ethnic China in their respective costumes, danced across the arena to the strains of “Ode to the Motherland”, lip-synced by a nine-year-old to the pre-recorded voice of another girl who had been told that she was not pretty enough to appear on the stage. To add insult to injury, it later turned out that all 56 of those children claiming to be representatives of China’s diversity were, in fact, all Han Chinese.

The spectacular $100 million opening ceremony lasted four hours and nine minutes as the 91,000 audience enjoyed a panoply of everything Chinese. They saw everything the Chinese Communist party wanted them and the rest of the world to see. Indeed, that was made easier by the notorious use of weather modification technology to prevent clouds and rain—just one of the more extreme examples of the Chinese Communist party manipulating the environment.

It was feted as a spectacular and unforgettable ceremony. It was

“the spectacular to end all spectaculars and probably can never be bettered”,

in the mesmerised words of one Tony Blair, but it was all a sham. The awarding of the 2008 Olympics to Beijing was accompanied by the International Olympic Committee promising that the games would act as a catalyst for human rights reform in China. One widely acknowledged genocide in Xinjiang later; thousands of Tibetans arrested, imprisoned, displaced, tortured and killed later; the snuffing out of free speech, the free press and political freedom and the trashing of the Sino-British joint declaration and imposition of the national security law later—that went well, didn’t it?

To help win the 2008 Olympics, China promised to allow space for Chinese citizens to protest during the games. Spaces were indeed allocated, but those who applied for permission to protest were in fact arrested, making a mockery of the undertakings to the IOC, and no doubt the same will happen again next February, as China remains the world’s largest jailer of journalists.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I am delighted to be in the Chamber listening to this extremely important speech from my hon. Friend. Does he recall that we had our own contribution to the silencing of debate, sadly, at the time of the Olympics in London? Some of the so-called guards of the Olympic flame turned out to be operatives from the Ministry of State Security, and dealt with citizens and individuals in this country rather more brutally than we would ever tolerate of our own police.

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Furthermore, I remember mentioning in this House the fate of Tibetans who had been protesting in the Mall and were arrested and stuck behind crowds and, in some cases, had their homes raided by the police, and were arrested before they could go and protest. That is not the way we do things in this country, yet for some reason we kowtowed to the Chinese authorities at that stage. That must never be repeated, and we must not resile from calling out those sort of tactics, which the Chinese will use in their own country and wherever they can gain influence.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I was reflecting on my hon. Friend’s earlier comments about the Olympics in Beijing. We were told in 2008, as I recall, that the awarding of the Olympics would be a key moment in the movement to get China to acknowledge and uphold human rights to a greater degree. That was in 2008. Does he think that it has made much progress?

[Tim Loughton]

That is exactly the point that I have been labouring to make. It was all a sham, and we all know how human rights in China have gone from bad to worse.

Back ahead of 2008, the Chinese authorities also had to clean up the environment around Beijing, as it looked at one stage as if everyone would have to compete in masks. Thirteen years on, China remains the world’s largest polluter, responsible for some 26% of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions. It has burnt more coal over the past 11 years than the rest of the world put together and now imperils the world’s third pole, the Tibetan plateau glaciers that service the water needs of billions of people. Of course, the energy needed to produce artificial snow in Beijing for the winter sports, as will be needed, will not exactly win any environmental awards.

Like it or not, China will make this global sporting event a global political spectacle. It is incredible, frankly, that the winter games were awarded to China in the first place, a sign of the much-too-cosy relationship between the Chinese Government, the IOC and its president, Thomas Bach, who during President Xi’s visit to the IOC headquarters in Lausanne back in 2017 claimed that he wanted to give the Chinese President a set of medals because

“he is the true Olympic champion for the youth”.

Yuck.

On virtually every level, the awarding of the games to China should never have happened. It flies in the face of the Olympic principles as encoded in the Olympics by the IOC, which states that

“Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example, social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles... The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity…sports organisations within the Olympic Movement shall apply political neutrality. They have the rights and obligations of autonomy, which include freely establishing and controlling the rules of sport, determining the structure and governance of their organisations, enjoying the right of elections free from any outside influence.”

Finally, it states:

“The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Olympic Charter shall be secured without discrimination of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”

How on earth does a genocidal, industrial scale human rights abusing, free speech intolerant and planet vandalising regime square with those principles?

In 2017, Xi Jinping claimed the international Olympic movement, in its over 100 years, had played a positive role in enhancing all-round human development, deepening friendship between nations, and promoting peace, development and progress. Everything that China has done since then and is still doing makes a mockery of that claim if the Beijing Olympics are allowed to go ahead in the form that the Chinese Communist party wants, its behaviour is allowed to be normalised, and it is allowed to score the major soft power propaganda victory it craves.

That is why a motion passed by this House urging a diplomatic boycott is so important, emphasising again that we will not turn a blind eye to industrial scale human rights abuses, and hopefully impressing on the Government the need to enact such a boycott so that no Ministers, diplomats, royal family members and other VIPs dance to the tune of the Chinese Communist party. The loss of face it will suffer will show how serious the United Kingdom is.

To date, the Chinese Government have taken no notice. Just last week, the Chinese tech giant Tencent’s WeChat social media platform deleted dozens of LGBT accounts, sparking fears of a crackdown on gay content online and gay rights generally, again in defiance of Olympic principles and echoing the actions of Russia suppressing LGBT organisations ahead of the 2014 Sochi winter Olympics.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I apologise for missing the first few seconds of what is a very powerful speech. I agree with every word the hon. Gentleman has said. He is completely right that the Chinese Government intend to use these winter Olympics as a propaganda exercise. Does he agree that it should be possible to turn this around if we—I just put this forward as an example—start referring to these winter Olympics as something like the “Genocide Games”?

[Tim Loughton]

If they are going to go ahead, that would be a very effective label to put on them to really force the point. The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point.

To go back the LGBT point I was making, remember that homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder in China until 2001 and earlier this year a Chinese court upheld a university’s description of homosexuality as a psychological disorder. How does that square with the principles I quoted in the Olympic charter?

There are also fears that Beijing merchandise will be made with Uyghur forced labour. I hope that the British sponsors of the games will have no truck with that if they continue to offer sponsorship and that some pressure may be applied there.

In bringing this motion before the House today, we are not alone. Through the good services of IPAC—the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China—and other like-minded organisations, motions are being put before the US House of Representatives, Parliaments in Germany, Canada, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania and others. On 8 June, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on member states and the Commission to decline invitations to the games in the absence of human rights improvement. For once, the EU did the right thing and voted for that unanimously. US Secretary of State Blinken has already mooted a diplomatic boycott, which has incurred the wrath of China, while Congressman Tom Malinowski of the House Foreign Affairs Committee has said:

“The International Olympic Committee should not be validating the Chinese government’s international standing while that government is committing genocide and crimes against humanity. This coordinated effort by legislators in multiple democratic countries sends a message the IOC cannot ignore: if it can discuss postponing the Tokyo Games over public health concerns, it can certainly move the China games over the mass incarceration of millions in concentration camps.”

In return, when celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist regime earlier this month, President Xi cheerily threatened that any foreigners attempting to influence China

“will have their heads bashed…against the Great Wall of steel”.

President Xi can bash away all he likes, but this House must not and will not be bowed.

This House will soon be invited to vote on a motion calling for the UK Government to institute a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics. I hope that hon. and right hon. Members vote Aye and that the Government act on that strong hint. But it must mean something and it must lead to more action and consequences for China’s behaviour beyond just a 16-day sporting event in February.

The Foreign Secretary has been robust in his condemnation of industrial scale human rights abuses in Xinjiang. The sanctions against a small number of officials and the restrictions on businesses dealing in Xinjiang are welcome, but they must be just a small start to a much broader programme of tangible action co-ordinated with our allies who champion democracy and human rights. Today, I re-tabled my Tibet (Reciprocal Access) Bill and extended it to apply to Xinjiang. The US Congress unanimously passed the Bill on which it is based—why can’t we?

Earlier, we heard concerns about the proposed Chinese takeover of the UK’s largest semiconductor producer, which must surely be blocked under the powers that the Government have under the National Security and Investment Act 202.

I am coming to an end now, Madam Deputy Speaker, as I know you want me to. The latest move makes it even more imperative that we have a full, holistic audit of the throttling grip that the many tentacles of the Chinese state is taking in British boardrooms, on British research and infrastructure projects, on British university campuses and in British classrooms. When will the notorious Chen Quanguo, the architect of oppression in Tibet and genocide in Xinjiang, be added to the sanctions list, along with other Chinese Communist party officials and politicians?

Acting on the motion today is not a discretionary option. It is imperative, and we are duty bound legally. The UK is a party to the genocide convention. All state parties to the genocide convention are under an obligation to refrain from taking an active part in the crime of genocide and, additionally, to prevent the commission of genocide by others using all means reasonably available and within their power. That includes situations where one state alone would be unable to prevent genocide but where its actions in combination with the efforts of others may do so.

A diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics is a measure available to the UK that may contribute to preventing genocide from being committed in the Xinjiang region. That is precisely because the Olympics has been identified as a key pressure point on China. China is seeking to use the Olympics to portray a positive image to the world and has already threatened a robust response to the suggestion that US diplomats may decline to attend. Such comments reveal its acute sensitivity to the spotlight that a diplomatic boycott would shine on its human rights abuses, and highlight the corresponding leverage that the international community has.

We are therefore under an obligation to prevent and punish the crime of genocide, as set down in the convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide. This House has already determined that a very credible case exists that atrocities have been carried out by the Chinese Government against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang, amounting to crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide. In passing the motion today, we will be therefore fulfilling our obligations and doing our job. I very much hope that the Minister will confirm that the Government will now take their obligations seriously and do their job by implementing the terms of the motion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful to the Minister and to all hon. and right hon. Members who have made such impassioned speeches here today. I think we have spoken virtually as one voice, although I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Mark Logan) would want to put it on record that he is a funding patron of the UK National Committee on China. We have heard great phrases: sportswashing; the genocide Olympics, which it will become known as; and the veneer of diplomatic respectability. Let us reinforce the point that our argument is not with the people of China, but with the murderous regime of the Chinese Communist party Government.

I am glad no decisions have been made so far. I hope the Minister will take very seriously the clear words he has heard here today. May I say gently to the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), that the enemy is not other democrats in this House? He has had a pop at the Government on several occasions, but the enemy is the Government of China, who are abusing their own people.

I go back to the principles of Olympism:

“The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Olympic Charter shall be secured without discrimination of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other opinion.”

It is the people of China who are not allowed those privileges. It is for them that we are standing up. That is why we need a diplomatic and political boycott to make that point loud and clear. I hope that the House will pass the motion today.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House believes that the 2022 Winter Olympic games should not be hosted in a country whose Government is credibly accused of mass atrocity crimes; and calls on the UK Government to decline invitations for its representatives to attend the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games unless the Government of the People’s Republic of China ends the atrocities taking place in the Xinjiang region and lifts the sanctions imposed on UK Parliamentarians, citizens and entities.

Human Rights: Xinjiang

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con) [V]]

Another day, another debate on the industrial scale of human rights abuses by the Chinese regime. Here we are again, and I am delighted that we are; I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani), who has so championed the cause, and wholeheartedly endorse everything she said. Together with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and the rest of the magnificent seven parliamentarians, she and I wear our sanctioning with a badge of honour.

I hope that the message has now got through that the productivity of the seven of us has increased sharply since that inept act by the Chinese regime of putting us on the arbitrary and ridiculous sanctions list. Let me tell the Chinese Government: they ain’t seen nothing yet, because this will go on every day of every week that we can possibly raise it in this place and on the platforms afforded to us as parliamentarians. They have really fired us up to make sure that that is a promise we will deliver.

I wholeheartedly support the motion, to which I have added my signature. Although Tibet is not within its strict scope, everything that has been said so far applies to Tibet and its people, who have been oppressed with similar tactics for the last 62 years, since the occupation of that peace-loving people in the Tibetan region of China back in 1959.

I absolutely take up the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green made about the environment. China is guilty of abusing not just its own people, but the planet, more than any other nation on this earth. Neither is acceptable; one is not a trade-off against the other, if that is the attitude that it wants to take when it comes to COP26. Both need to be called out, and on both it needs to mend its ways—they go hand in hand.

It is a shocking reality that genocides have never properly been called out and thwarted at the time that they happen—genocides against the Jews, genocides against the Muslims in Srebrenica, genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia and Darfur, and the many other genocides that go unnamed and are not properly detected, as the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) mentioned. I include in that list the Armenian genocide of 1915 and 1916, when 1 million to 1.5 million men, women and children died at the hands of the Ottomans. On Saturday, in Yerevan and around the world, tributes will be paid and flowers laid; I will do so on behalf of the all-party parliamentary group on Armenia at the Cenotaph tomorrow in commemoration of that terrible genocide, which this country needs to recognise, more than 100 years on.

We talk about debating the subject. Under article I of the UN convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, the United Kingdom is obliged, along with all other UN members,

“to prevent and to punish”

genocide—not just to talk about it, although it is good that we are doing that, but actually to do something about it.

We have heard all the clear evidence on what is going on in Xinjiang province; I will not repeat what my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden said. We know that China formally recognised the Uyghurs as an ethnic minority among its exhaustive list of the no fewer than 56 ethnic groups that comprise its population, along with the Tibetan people. Under China’s own constitution, those minorities and their cultures and identities should be protected, but they are being obliterated. China is trying to assimilate them within its main population, so whatever we may think in terms of international law, it is falling foul of its own constitution. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker) said, the Chinese regime, in doing what it has done to suppress free speech, has committed an act against this Parliament and the privileges that we have in this Parliament. It is a naked act of aggression against free speech.

It is clear that what is happening is genocide. My hon. Friend the Member for Wealden put it starkly: if a state-orchestrated and race-targeted birth rate plunge of two thirds in two years is not genocide, what is? If mass internment, slave labour, systematic rape, torture and live organ harvesting, mass sterilisation, womb removal, forced abortion, secretly located orphan camps, brainwashing camps and the psychological trauma of these combined atrocities do not amount to genocide, under any of the definitions, what does? There is a saying, “If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck and walks like a duck, it is a duck.” This sounds like, looks like and is genocide, and it needs to be called out loud and clear for what it is.

I urge the Minister again, who has been very supportive. We are very grateful for the very supportive words of the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Minister, who I am glad to see here again today, and of the Speaker and the Lord Speaker in support of the magnificent seven. But why, oh why, are we not going further in the sanctions against people who are clearly guilty of waging genocide on other Chinese citizens? Chen Quanguo absolutely needs to be on that list; he has been committing genocide against the Uyghurs since 2016, having learnt and plied his trade in Tibet against the Tibetans before that.

We need to do more to support those businesses that are being thrown out of Xinjiang and that are in some cases taking a stand. We need to have a proper audit of our universities and schools. I hear that the Prebendal School in Chichester, in my own diocese, is now under threat of being taken over by the Chinese, and this is on top of no fewer than 17 senior schools around the UK that are now under the control of senior Chinese figures in the Chinese communist party. This is happening in our country, on our watch. We need to flush it out; we need to put the spotlight on it.

The contacts the Chinese have within our military research and their activities within our infrastructure projects—we have to have a full and thorough audit of the tentacles of the Chinese regime in UK society up and down this country. There are still artificial intelligence firms with links to persecution of Uyghurs funding research at British universities. They are funding places at PhD and post-doctoral research positions at Surrey University, for example, despite having been placed on a US blacklist in 2019. I pay tribute to the University of Manchester, which cancelled an agreement with the Chinese electronic company CETC after warnings that it supplied the tech platforms and apps used by Beijing’s security forces in the mass surveillance of the Uyghurs. We need to do more to make sure we are not aiding and abetting these parts of the Chinese regime.

Last month, the Foreign Office admitted that the Uyghurs were being harassed and abused in the UK itself, so it is not just happening within China. As the Foreign Secretary said, this is being done to intimidate them into silence, and they are being urged to report on other Uyghurs to the police.

Rahima Mahmut, the UK director for the World Uyghur Congress, who has bravely stood up and is one of the mouthpieces for the Uyghur population here, was in Parliament Square earlier. In an article in The Telegraph, she gave some chilling examples of Uyghur exiles in this country being intimidated by the long tentacles of the Chinese regime while in the supposed safety of this country. Those exiles are ominously reminded that they have relatives back in China. A Uyghur woman received texts every day from the Chinese police urging her to spy on other Uyghurs in the UK and saying, “Remember, your mother and your sisters are with us.”

This regime does not stop at its own borders and we need to stand shoulder to shoulder and offer whatever support we can to protect those Uyghur refugees, Tibetan refugees and other victims of oppression by China who find themselves in this country. They deserve our safety and our succour, and we need to give them more to protect them from the dangers that they are going through.

I also urge the Minister: we should be encouraging our diplomats to speak out. Last week, I cited the example of the new British ambassador in Beijing who had been hauled over the coals for just mentioning the free press to the Chinese Government. John Sudworth, the BBC correspondent in Beijing, has had to flee from Beijing, after reporting on human rights abuses, because of fears for his own safety and the safety of his family. We must encourage these people to continue to speak out.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

Given that list of people and organisations that have called things out, does my hon. Friend not find it strange that no UK university that is receiving funds from the Chinese has condemned any of the action that is going on publicly, or, for that matter, condemned the action of the Confucius Institutes, which spy on Chinese students in universities?

[Tim Loughton]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have long been calling out the Confucius Institutes, which are not only on the campuses of UK universities, stuffing gold into the mouths of vice-chancellors, but, increasingly, in our schools as well. When I visited a secondary school in my constituency, which teaches Mandarin, I was alarmed to see that it now has a Confucius Institute classroom sponsored by the Chinese. The Chinese are not doing this because they just like to be nice to our schools; they are doing it because they have an agenda and they are trying to control people around the world and suppress people who want to speak out against them.

I echo the closing words of my right hon. Friend. Today, we stand up in this place for those without any voice. That is an advantage of being a parliamentarian—we use our voice to stand up for, speak out for and protect those without a voice and those who are in danger. Let us, with that voice—loudly and clearly—make sure that this motion goes through today to show China once and for all that it has been called out, that there will be consequences, and that there are consequences, for its industrial scale abuse of human rights, and that, in this country at least, freedom and the freedom of speech, of faith and of worship count for something and it had better acknowledge that.

Chinese Government Sanctions on UK Citizens

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if he will make a statement on recent sanctions imposed by the Chinese Government on UK citizens.

[The Minister for Asia (Nigel Adams)]

The Government stand in complete solidarity with those sanctioned by China. As the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary have made clear, this action by Beijing is utterly unacceptable and unwarranted.

The House will recall that on 22 March, the UK, alongside the EU, Canada and the United States, imposed asset freezes and travel bans against four senior Chinese Government officials and one entity responsible for the violations that have taken place and persist against the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. In response, China sanctioned nine individuals and four organisations, including Members of this House and the other place, who have criticised its record on human rights. It speaks volumes that while 30 countries are united in sanctioning those responsible for serious and systematic violations of human rights in Xinjiang, China’s response is to retaliate against those who seek to shine a light on those violations. It is fundamental to our parliamentary democracy that Members of both Houses can speak without fear or favour on matters of concern to the British people.

The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have made absolutely clear the Government’s position through their public statements and on 22 March. I also summoned China’s representative in the UK to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to lodge a strong, formal protest at China’s actions. This Government have been quick to offer support to those who have been sanctioned. The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary held private meetings with the parliamentarians named in China’s announcement. My noble Friend, the Minister for human rights, Lord Ahmad, met other individuals and the entities that have been targeted. Through this engagement, we have provided guidance and an offer of ongoing support, including a designated FCDO point of contact and specialist briefing from relevant Departments.

Just as this Government will be unbowed by China’s action, I have no doubt that Members across this House will be undeterred in raising their fully justified concerns about the situation in Xinjiang and the human rights situation in China more broadly. I applaud the parliamentarians named by China: my hon. Friends the Members for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) and for Wealden (Ms Ghani), my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), the noble Lord Alton and the noble Baroness Kennedy for the vital role they have played in drawing attention to the plight of the Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang.

This Government have worked with partners to build the international caucus of those willing to speak out against China’s human rights violations and increase the pressure on China to change its behaviour. We have led joint statements at the UN’s human rights bodies, most recently joined by 38 countries at the UN General Assembly Third Committee in October, and we have backed up our international action with robust domestic measures. In addition to the global human rights sanctions announced on 22 March, the Foreign Secretary announced a series of targeted measures in January to help ensure that British businesses are not complicit in human rights violations in Xinjiang. The United Kingdom will continue to work alongside its partners to send the clearest possible signal of the international community’s serious concern and our collective willingness to act to hold China to account for its gross human rights violations in the region.

[Tim Loughton]

Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank the Speaker for granting this urgent question and for his robust support, together with that of the Lord Speaker, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Minister today. I suppose I need to declare an interest as one of the five right hon. and hon. Members of this House who have been placed on the Chinese Government’s sanctions list, apparently for “maliciously” spreading “lies and disinformation”; in the language of the Chinese Communist party, of course, that is a euphemism for speaking the truth. As parliamentarians we have been singled out, together with Lord Alton and Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws, presumably for our vociferous calling out of the genocide against the Uyghur people by the Chinese Government, the industrial-scale human rights abuses in Tibet and the suppression of free speech and liberty in Hong Kong. That is what parliamentarians do, without fear or favour, in a democracy. To be sanctioned by a totalitarian regime is, therefore, not only deeply ironic and laughable, but an abuse of parliamentary privilege of this House, by a foreign regime.

What further action are the Government considering against the Chinese Government to emphasise how unacceptable and unfounded their action is? Will the Minister assure the House that the Government will not be proceeding with any new agreements with the Chinese Government while these sanctions remain in place?

The other individuals named were Newcastle University academic Dr Jo Smith Finley and Uyghur expert lawyer, Sir Geoffrey Nice QC. Does the Minister agree that this also represents an attack on academic freedom and the independence of the legal profession in the United Kingdom? What support are the Government offering to those two individuals?

Given growing concerns about the malign influence of the Chinese Government in sensitive research projects in our universities, the sinister tentacles of the Confucius institutes on campuses and increasingly in our schools, not to mention the wide-scale buying of influence in UK boardrooms, will the Government commit to a detailed and transparent audit of Chinese influence in our education system, our military capability, our business and our infrastructure projects, and, if found to be acting against British interests, send them packing?

Given the disgraceful recent dressing-down of our ambassador in Beijing for supporting on social media the role of a free press, will the Minister confirm that British diplomats will not be bowed and will be fortified in calling out abuses by the Chinese Government wherever they happen, as we sanctioned parliamentarians have been fortified to call out the abuses of the totalitarian Government in China by their badly-thought-out and counterproductive use of sanctions, which we will wear as a badge of honour? Will the Minister signal, clearly and firmly, that project kowtow is over and that Britain will not flinch from standing up and calling out Chinese Government abuses, which they have got away with for far too long?

[Nigel Adams]

I thank my hon. Friend for his questions and for his bravery in the work that he and other right hon. and hon. Members have done, which led to these extraordinary measures by China.

We have been absolutely clear with China that its sanctioning of UK individuals and entities is unwarranted and unacceptable. My hon. Friend is right to shine a light on these measures. We will not allow this action by China—neither will our diplomats—to distract attention from the gross human rights violations in Xinjiang. We will continue to work alongside our partners to send the clearest possible signal of the international community’s serious concerns and our collective willingness to act.

My hon. Friend mentioned Jo Smith Finley, who is another of the individuals named. Academic freedom and freedom of speech are fundamental UK values and a cornerstone of the world-class UK higher education system. The attempt to silence those highlighting human rights violations in Xinjiang in academia is absolutely unwarranted and unacceptable. We are offering support to Jo Smith Finley, as we will and have for all those impacted by these sanctions.

Human Rights Update

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. Asylum applications are quite rightly done independently, rather than just on a political whim. He refers to the definition in the genocide convention. Before coming to the House, I worked on war crimes, including in The Hague. It is very rare that a tribunal has found human rights abuses to amount to genocide because of the specific legal definition, but we do think the right thing is that a tribunal, whether it is domestic or international, makes that judgment.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement today, but it is one element of so much more that needs to be done. Everything he referred to as industrial scale assaults on human rights against the Uyghurs has been committed by the Chinese Government against the Tibetans since 1959, until recently by one Chen Quanguo, who brought what he called “ethnic stability”—it is what we know as “ethnic cleansing”—to Tibet and who is now bringing genocide to the people of Xinjiang. So why is he not on the list? And when our Five Eyes partners, such as America and Canada, and allies such as the Netherlands have referred to this as genocide, and many other countries are considering doing so, why can we not call it out for what it is: genocide, pure and simple?

[Dominic Raab]

The reality is that genocide has a very, very complex legal definition, which is why, in war crimes tribunals since Nuremberg, it has very rarely been found. The right thing to do is to respect the legal definition and allow a court to make those determinations. It is principally for the purposes of finding criminal accountability, but I understand the wider points that my hon. Friend makes.

Yemen: Aid Funding

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. The UK provides secondees to the office of Martin Griffiths, the UN special representative. A number of those secondees focus specifically on broad engagement with minorities within the peace process. I have spoken on a number of occasions about the importance of ensuring protection for minority communities and religious minorities in conflicts, and about getting an inclusive set of people around the negotiating table once peace negotiations are under way.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con) [V]]

As chair of the all-party group for Yemen, yesterday I spoke to some very brave women from within Marib, which is under long-term siege from the Houthis. They told me that most of the Houthi forces are young men and teenage boys recruited from the most impoverished parts of Yemen. They also told me that Marib is now hosting over 2 million displaced people across 144 camps. Many children are not just suffering from famine and disease; they have been deeply traumatised after having been driven out by the Houthis. They all rely on generous UK aid and the example it sets to other countries who need to step up in the humanitarian aid effort and the subsequent reconstruction. How can indicating a cut in UK aid at this crucial time do anything but prolong this terrible conflict?

[James Cleverly]

The situation my hon. Friend describes in Marib is deeply concerning. We have called on the Houthis to end their assault. Marib has become the temporary home for many internally displaced people, and the situation there is dire. A number of people have mentioned our support for, or our relationship with, neighbouring countries, and of course defending Marib against this Houthi assault is part of the conversations we have. But, ultimately, the best thing we can do is bring about a swift end to this conflict.