China

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Rees, for this important and extremely timely debate on the UK Government’s approach to China.

As everyone has, I thank the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) for securing the debate, and thank all those who have taken part in a wide-ranging, well-informed and bilingual debate. It has highlighted many of the concerns we must consider, including China’s belt and road initiative; the well-documented mistreatment of religious and ethnic minorities; the use of the national security laws in Hong Kong; the future of Taiwan; Chinese multilateralism, particularly given the emergence of BRICs; the inherent dangers in the development of the internet of things; and the challenges that we face with the CCP activities in monitoring both their own people and pro-democracy Hong Kong activists here in the UK. There are many and varied concerns, and I hope the Minister can address as many of them as possible, but it is not possible to address the problems and challenges posed by China in one Westminster Hall debate.

We all recognise that in a relatively short time China has become one of the most politically and economically powerful countries in the world. There is now barely a country that is not either in hock to China financially or desperately trying to defend its economic interests from China. When the UK Government consider the future of their economic and political relationship with China, it is essential that securing trade and business links with Beijing does not come at the cost of our obligation to defend international human rights. Furthermore, we must not compromise national security in pursuit of the yen.

The political and economic reach of China is astonishing. Beijing’s phenomenally successful global infrastructure project, the belt and road initiative, has seen China invest in almost 150 countries. Those countries account for around two thirds of the world’s population and 40% of global GDP. Massive investment in links by road, rail, sea and digital infrastructure have transformed the relationship that those participating nations have with Beijing, making them increasingly dependent on the Chinese economy and, as a result, building in both economic and political influence for China.

Indebtedness, mainly among developing nations in the global south that have accepted such investment through the belt and road initiative, now stands at an eye-watering $1 trillion. Lord Alton of Liverpool said:

“This has made them extraordinarily subservient and often into vassal states that do the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 26 March 2024; Vol. 837, c. 675.]

That is particularly problematic not just because of the massive level of indebtedness these countries are accruing, but because they are becoming indebted to a country that has shown itself so often not to care for the rules-based order on which we all depend or for the fundamental human rights of their religious or cultural minorities.

But let us be very careful before we condemn others for turning a blind eye to Chinese human rights abuses in pursuit of investment. The UK’s hands are far from spotless on this matter. Time and again we pay lip service to criticising Chinese human rights abuses without doing anything that may incur any economic cost for ourselves.

Nury Turkel, the Uyghur-American lawyer and the commissioner on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, has directly challenged countries such as the UK, asking, “How do you propose to get China to change without going after the most important thing to the Chinese Government, which is their economic interest?” Whether the Minister likes it or not, it is an inescapable fact that, as long as we pay little more than lip service to condemning China’s human rights abuses and continue to trade in goods that we know are, at the very least, highly suspected of being made by Uyghur slave labour, we really do not have a moral high ground from which to lecture others.

For example, last month the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), secured an Adjournment debate on solar supply chains, in which she made it clear that, by lagging behind the US and the European Union in ensuring that Chinese solar panels that come to the UK are not produced by Uyghur slave labour, the UK was in real danger of becoming a dumping ground for what she described as “dirty solar”.

This is not a new issue for the Government. Just over two years ago I introduced a Bill that would have prohibited any goods made by forced labour in the Xinjiang region. It would have required all companies that import products from Xinjiang to the UK to provide proof that they were not manufactured by forced or enslaved labour. The Bill would have brought the UK into line with the United States, which passed a similar law in 2021. So there have been opportunities to act, but thus far the UK Government have chosen not to. That is why, Minister, there is a growing perception that this Government are just paying lip service on Chinese human rights abuses without doing anything practical or tangible.

I recall a similar debate in 2020. The UK Government Minister’s reply then was that the Government would

“continue to urge the Chinese authorities to change their approach in Xinjiang and respect international human rights,”

but four years on there is no evidence whatever that that approach has worked, and it is clear that China has not paid the slightest heed to what the UK Government or anyone else have to say about its human rights record.

It is not just the Uyghurs whose human rights have been trampled over. Last week, at a surgery on the Isle of Bute, I met my constituent Mary Clark, who is a Falun Gong practitioner. She reminded me that it is five years since the China tribunal led by Sir Geoffrey Nice found that the Falun Gong practitioners in China were being subjected to the most awful crimes, including the unspeakably horrific practice of organ harvesting. That is truly a crime against humanity. Despite the overwhelming evidence and unambiguous verdict of the tribunal, the response that was demanded of Governments and other international actors simply did not follow.

Not even after the 2021 report from the UN on freedom of religion or belief, which provided clear evidence of such abhorrent practices, did the international community take any action against China. Thankfully, we are reminded at every opportunity by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) that freedom of religion or belief is a fundamental human right, and as part of the international community we have a responsibility to protect it.

In short, we talk a good game but we never deliver. Decades of harsh condemnation, despite urging and impassioned persuasion, have failed to shift China one iota. It seems that not even the tearing up of a legally binding international agreement and a slew of broken promises made to the people of Hong Kong can stir the UK into much more than finger wagging, tut-tutting and headshaking.

The speed at which Beijing has stripped away the basic freedoms of expression and peaceful protest, and has extinguished Hong Kong’s independent free press—turning it from being one of the most open cities in Asia to one of the most repressive—should alarm every one of us. The use of the draconian national security law to crack down on pro-democracy campaigners, including Jimmy Lai, who is still on trial, is an absolute disgrace and a shame on this country. If that does not motivate the UK to take a more robust attitude to Beijing, we have to conclude that perhaps nothing will.

We are not naive enough to believe that the UK could stand up to the economic might of China by itself. But sadly, all too often, when presented with the opportunity to act in concert with friends and allies, the UK Government have chosen not to.