China’s Policy on its Uighur Population

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered China’s policy on its Uighur population.

I am grateful to the Speaker for allowing the House time to discuss this important and timely issue. Officially, according to the Chinese state, Uighurs have been resident in China since the ninth century; in fact, historians suggest that Uighurs have been around for about 4,000 years, since before the Islamic period. They have certainly experienced trials and tribulations over the centuries, but today, in a so-called industrial nation and a member of the G8, they find themselves in arguably their cruellest moment in history, with the Chinese state undertaking a systematic security, political and cultural assault on their very existence as a people.

Over the past four years, at least 1 million people, mostly Uighur Muslims, out of a Uighur population of about 10 million have been detained without trial in the Xinjiang autonomous region of China. In recent years, a vast network of so-called re-education centres has emerged. The first of these detention centres emerged following the Chinese Government’s “Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism”. The stated aim of the campaign was to bring political stability to Xinjiang after terrorist attacks and unrest that killed 1,000 people and injured 1,700 between 2007 and 2014. I will come back to that later. The current Chinese ambassador to London praised the campaign for creating

“social stability and unity among ethnic groups”,

citing the absence of terrorist attacks in the region in recent years as proof of the campaign’s success. However, the definition of terrorism applied in the region is troublingly vague. It does not allow peaceful protest, human rights activism or even routine religious practice.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend think that the individual arrested for terrorism in China after unintentionally clicking on to an international website—that was his only crime—is a good example of a terrorist?

[Mark Pritchard]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. A troubling aspect of this is that people are being detained for—intentionally or even unintentionally—visiting foreign websites. That has to stop. People should be free to surf the internet as they wish.

The definition of terrorism is worrying, as my hon. Friend points out. Uighurs should be allowed to undertake peaceful protest, human rights activism and religious practice without fear of the Chinese state coming after them. The Chinese Government should not conflate those peaceful activities with acts of terrorism or violent extremism. With mass surveillance and ethnic and religious profiling, leaked Chinese Government documents show that Uighurs are detained for exercising basic human rights and freedoms such as praying, attending a mosque or studying the Koran, applying for a passport, wearing religious dress such as a veil, or simply for being deemed “untrustworthy”—whatever that is—for unspecified reasons by the Chinese state.

The Chinese Government claim that the detention centres are voluntary re-education centres focused on teaching Mandarin, the law and vocational skills, all supposedly to eliminate extremism and improve the prospects of the Uighur minority, but China allows no monitoring of these facilities by the UN or international human rights organisations. For clarity, leaked Chinese Government cables demonstrate that the camps operate as high-security prisons, with intrusive video surveillance, harsh punishments and compulsory Mandarin classes, to supposedly achieve the “ideological transformation” of Uighurs. Surveillance from satellites reveals that the so-called voluntary re-education centres have watch towers, double perimeter walls topped with razor wire and armed guards. Former detainees describe detention of the elderly and seriously ill, forced confessions, rapes and beatings, severe overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, Muslim detainees being force-fed pork and alcohol, the administering of unknown pills and injections, and detainees being forced to repeat slogans such as “I love China”, and “Thank you to the Communist party”. Tragically, there are reports of significant numbers of suicides among detainees.

On 9 December last year, Governor Zakir of the Xinjiang region claimed that all Uighur detainees had been released, but there has been no independent proof to verify that claim. Indeed, many Uighurs living outside China believe that their relatives are still being detained, while satellite imagery reveals new detention centres being built and existing detention centres being extended. Even those Uighurs who have been transferred from detention centres might not be free as we would define it. Leaked Chinese Government documents show Uighurs released to so-called industrial park employment—in effect, forced labour camps. Perhaps the Chinese are learning bad lessons from their neighbours in North Korea.

A stark report published earlier this month by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute estimates that, between 2017 and 2019, approximately 80,000 Uighurs were transferred from detention centres in Xinjiang to factories throughout the whole of China. Once again, Uighur communities have been separated and families torn apart. Worryingly, the same report claims that some of these factories form part of the direct and indirect supply chains to dozens of global brands, including Apple, Nike, BMW, Samsung and Sony—something that these tech companies, many of them suppliers to Her Majesty’s Government, need to explain or convincingly refute. I had the privilege of chairing sittings of the Modern Slavery Public Bill Committee some five years ago. Making profit on the back of slave labour is a criminal offence and has to stop.

In addition to monitoring the activities of Uighurs at home, Chinese authorities have made foreign ties a punishable offence. Uighurs who have been abroad, have families overseas or who communicate with people outside China have been interrogated, detained and imprisoned. Particularly targeted have been those Uighurs with connections to so-called sensitive countries. There are 26 in total, including Kazakhstan, Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia. As a result, many Uighurs living outside China say they have lost contact with relatives back home, including young children, for months at a time. The sudden tightening of passport controls and border crossings has left Uighur families divided, with children often trapped in China and their parents abroad, or vice versa.

What is more, the actions of the Chinese Government are clear violations not only of international human rights laws but of China’s own constitution, domestic laws and judicial processes. The Chinese constitution is clear: it forbids discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity or religious belief. Political re-education camps have no basis in Chinese law. My hon. Friend the Minister will know that China is bound by the universal declaration of human rights and is a signatory of the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights, which China signed in 1997 and ratified in 2001. It is also bound by the international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination, which it acceded to in 1981; and the convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, which China signed in 1986 and ratified in 1992. All those international agreements create a duty to guarantee freedom of thought and expression, freedom of religion and association, freedom from discrimination, a prohibition on torture, and the right to a fair trial.

Even if we accept that the Chinese Government are responding to a real and ongoing terrorist threat in Xinjiang, multiple UN resolutions make it clear that in tackling terrorism and violent extremism, all states must still comply with their obligations under international law. In response to reports of human rights abuses, the UN has condemned China’s criminalisation of fundamental rights in Xinjiang and called for it to

“Halt the practice of detaining individuals who have not been lawfully charged, tried and convicted”.

Last summer, at a US Government-hosted conference in Washington DC on religious freedom, the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, called China’s treatment of Uighurs the “stain of the century”—pretty strong words. I was pleased when, in December, the US House of Representatives passed a bipartisan Bill that condemns the

“arbitrary detention, torture, and harassment”

of Uighurs. I pay particular tribute to Senator Markey, a Democrat, and Senator Rick Scott, a Republican, for that rare bipartisan approach in the US Congress on a foreign policy issue. Amnesty International has demanded that UN inspectors be able to verify Chinese Government claims that Uighur detainees have been released. I certainly call for that today as well.

The purpose of the detention of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang is, I think, becoming alarmingly clear. It is a misplaced counter-violent extremism counter-narrative and, in my view, erroneous counter-terrorism policy, which will inevitably create more terrorists than it will detain or ever re-educate. That is not to deny that Chinese nationals from the Xinjiang region have previously fought in Afghanistan, or previously or currently fought in Syria, with jihadis from other parts of the world, but just like in the UK, those numbers are small compared with each nation’s Muslim population, who predominantly want to live in peace and without conflict.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an exceptionally powerful speech. I feel confident that the Government will agree with him, and with me, that individual criminal acts can never be used to justify the systematic persecution of ethnic or religious groups, in this case the persecution of Muslims, but the Government will need to set out in considerable detail how they intend to do something about that. It is easy to utter warm words, but we will need to use our connections to international institutions with great robustness if we are to act and satisfy my hon. Friend on this matter.

[Mark Pritchard]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. He is absolutely right. There have clearly been, as I referenced earlier, acts of terrorism within China, but those have been committed by a small minority of people. Claims were made by organisations regarding the Beijing attacks, but China said that in fact they were not responsible. A variety of domestic and international groups want to cause harm to Chinese nationals. We would stand with the Government of China and with the people of China against such groups, but my hon. Friend is right to point out that the Muslim population in China want to live in peace and get on with their lives in freedom, like most people around the world. We are talking about a very small minority compared with the 10 million population that I referenced earlier.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

I have my own experience of staying with the Uighurs, having spent some weeks in that part of the world. It is clear to anyone who has lived there what a noble civilisation they represent. To cast an entire population as terrorist sympathisers is an absolute travesty and does not in any way justify the Chinese Government’s undertaking population-level oppression and their wholly disproportionate response to a small terrorist incursion.

[Mark Pritchard]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. I was not aware of his personal experience, but he adds real value to the debate by sharing that. He is absolutely right. A one-size-fits-all policy is not right, and I will elaborate on why I think that.

Notwithstanding this debate and what might be perceived as criticism by some in the embassy here, or those in China, it is not criticism. It is what I call critical appreciation, or being a candid friend. China is a strategic partner and a key ally on so many levels internationally. To make this speech and have this debate is not to deny that there is a domestic terrorist threat in China; it is not a denial that, for example, the Turkistan Islamic party is a real threat to the Chinese nation. However, it does appear that the detention and forced labour camps policy is at best a clumsy attempt to reduce the threat of home-grown terrorism and at worst an illegal attempt to eradicate Uighur culture, language and religious practice. I think that either attempt will ultimately fail.

The short-term outcome might be a decline in the number of protests, and reduced Uighur gatherings, but the acts of state-led oppression are, I fear, laying the foundations of the very radicalisation and future home-grown terrorism that the Chinese Government are seeking to avert. It is a tragic irony that, in carrying out these policies, the Chinese state itself is in danger of becoming a recruiting sergeant for its own domestic terrorist threat in the coming years.

Last November, the United Nations issued a report agreeing with that analysis. It stated that

“disproportionate emphasis placed by the authorities on the repression of rights of minorities risks worsening any security risk”

and that such practices

“deeply erode the foundations for the viable social, economic and political development of society as a whole.”

Today, I am calling on the Chinese Government to end the extrajudicial detention of Uighurs and other minority groups in the Xinjiang region; to allow religious minorities to practise their religion peacefully and without state interference; and to heed the UK Government’s call to allow the United Nations to send in observers with unrestricted access to the detention or re-education centres. I urge Ministers to keep diplomatic pressure on their Chinese counterparts, both in bilateral discussions and through the United Nations.

Finally, I say to the Chinese authorities, as a friend—a candid friend—recognising the great and long history of China, China’s huge economic success and its astonishing and positive sociological transformation, that in sowing the seeds of oppression and repression in its own Uighur population, China’s leadership runs the very high risk of reaping a harvest of significant home-grown terrorism in the years that lie ahead.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

It always changes just before I start, Mr Sharma. I do not take it personally, of course.

I want to start off on a slightly different tack. In March 1936, the Conservative MP for Chelmsford was a man called Jack Macnamara. He travelled to Germany to celebrate the remilitarisation of the Rhineland. Perhaps we might think that unusual today, but many people at the time thought that Germany should be allowed to stand on its own two feet again, after the Versailles treaty.

What changed his mind about Germany was visiting Dachau. The Germans showed it off. Most of the people in there at the time were political prisoners. They were members of the Communist and Social Democratic parties, or freemasons. Some were dissident clergy of various different Churches, and some were Jews. A significant number of them were homosexuals. The Nazi regime said they were there for their own protective custody—their re-education. They were kept in camps where they had to work hard every day. They were told what they had to do. They were told what they had to listen to. They were shown antisemitic magazines and horrible material that they had to inwardly digest. If they ever told anyone what was going on there, whether they told the truth or not, they were subjected to even harsher punishment. On top of that, it was felt that many of those people were being deliberately driven towards suicide.

Every one of those elements is present in what is going on in Xinjiang province in China at the moment. I want to say to Chinese friends that, just as that British MP in 1936 went to the new Germany as its friend and came back a harsh critic of Hitler’s regime—he ended up fighting and losing his life in the second world war to protect the freedoms of the kinds of people who were in Dachau—there is a danger that so too will China completely alienate the whole world community because of its actions in Xinjiang province and its treatment of the Uighurs. In many ways, some of what is happening to the Uighurs is even worse. There is the religious oppression, the refusal to allow people to have their own thoughts, the re-education, the deliberate reculturation and the attempt to destroy a whole community, but it is also applied to children. At least there were not children in Dachau.

[Mark Pritchard]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and happy to give him an extra minute by intervening on him. He mentioned alienating the whole world, but does he agree that it is not just about that—whether it happens or not—because, clearly, if China is breeding a counter-terrorism problem for itself, that will also be a counter-terrorism problem for the whole world, including the United Kingdom? Terrorists do not abide by national borders, so that is another incentive for the British Government to be slightly more robust on the issue than they probably have been to date.

[Chris Bryant]

There is a patent injustice, and injustice tends to lead to people taking some form of action. We would always want it to be legitimate and peaceful. The danger is, as the hon. Gentleman says, that the action being taken will be entirely counterproductive. China says that what is happening is meant to prevent terrorism, but it is far more likely to create it, in China and other parts of the world. Many people see their brothers and sisters on the other side of the world and feel that they are being hard done by, and want to do something about it.

What angers me is that the situation is all of a piece with the creation of a security state. I thought that the whole point of communism was to create a welfare state, but a security state is being created—exactly the opposite. I would also make the point to China that it has done extraordinarily well in the last 20, 30 or 40 years out of the international rule of law. It has served it well and China has managed to make enormous advances economically and culturally. Now it stands, having previously tended to sit to the side in the international community, wanting to take a much more central part in the world—hence all the various initiatives it has come up with around the world. It will not be able to do that if it does not abide by the international rule of law in its own country. On those two points its actions are utterly counterproductive—even if one were to accept the moral outrage that is what is happening to the Uighurs.

I want to end with a point about the Magnitsky Act. It is about time we had such legislation on the statute book. It has been promised repeatedly by the Foreign Secretary and I hope that the Minister will update us on when it will be published, when it will be able to go through, and when we will be able to use it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Pritchard]

I am sorry to put the Minister on the spot, but we are not here to play games. These are serious issues. As I am on my feet, there are currently men, women and children illegally incarcerated in China. Will he commit today that the Government, through their procurement office, will write to all the suppliers to Her Majesty’s Government that I have referenced today in this Chamber, to seek assurances that they are not using slave labour or forced labour to manufacture their goods?

[Nigel Adams]

Our concerns about this area and the report that my hon. Friend refers to are very well known. The research in the report, and the potential use of forced labour, gives us a better understanding of the situation. We contributed a small part of the overall funding to that research, although we did not play a part in the drafting of the report. It helps to inform us, and my hon. Friend raises a very good point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Pritchard]

I always valued and admired the approach of Kim Howells, a former Labour Member of Parliament and Minister at the Foreign Office. He was driven with moral purpose and always gave clear responses, certainly in my experience. I think today is the first time in my 15 years here that I have heard a Minister from the Foreign Office, notwithstanding Mr Howells, be prepared to say on record that he condemns the action of China. I applaud him for his clarity and candour, which will bring huge encouragement to the Uighur population of China.

In our discussion about China’s policy on its Uighur population and the illegal detention of Uighurs, the Minister—this may be the quickest that he has ever heard quotes back from his own speech—used the words “indiscriminate”, “disproportionate” and “counterproductive”. As friends of China in this Chamber, we call upon the Chinese Government to think again about the policy, to end it and to abide by its international obligations and by international human rights and humanitarian laws. They are stoking up a terrorism problem for the future, which will be not only China’s problem but that of the region and then an international problem, affecting the United Kingdom. I applaud the Minister for his response and for his clarity. I hope that China is listening.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered China’s policy on its Uighur population.