Relationship with Russia and China

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) for securing this important debate. The eyes of the world may be focused elsewhere at present, but it is vital that we do not lose sight of other nations where people face abuses. My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Ukraine today as they face aggression. Military aggression in Ukraine is not acceptable, and the House stands in solidarity with the people of Ukraine.

I thank the Office of Tibet, Tibet Action and Free Tibet for their briefings ahead of this debate. I thank, too, the all-party group for Tibet for all the work that it does. I declare an interest as the vice-chair of the said all-party group. I was pleased to have the opportunity to meet the Office of Tibet in London last year at the Labour party conference where I heard about the experiences of the Tibetan people.

Since it was annexed more than 70 years ago, occupied Tibet has been closed off to much of the rest of the world, preventing us from witnessing the repression against the people that live in the region. According to the Free Tibet campaign, the Chinese Government have been orchestrating a deliberate and systematic elimination of Tibet’s distinct and unique cultural, religious and linguistic identity through a sinicization of Tibetan Buddhism, its culture and its language.

Worryingly, those sinicization measures are reported to have increased in intensity over the past decade, reflecting the Chinese Government’s further attempts to subdue the Tibetans, who continue to resist the occupation. This process includes the Chinese Government’s bilingual education policy of replacing the Tibetan language—the common language of all Tibetans—with Mandarin. In the words of the Free Tibet campaign, this

“strikes at the very root of the Tibetan identity”.

It was reported late last year that two teenage Tibetan students were detained for opposing Chinese-only instruction in their school. A Tibetan teacher was also arrested after her Tibetan-language school was forced to close. According to research by the Tibet Action Institute, as many as 900,000 Tibetan children are estimated to have been separated from their families, while the teaching of the Tibetan language has faced further restrictions, with limitations on monasteries that wish to provide language classes.

Last month, I asked our Government whether they had raised that exact issue, specifically regarding Chinese-run boarding schools in Tibet, with their counterparts in China. I must say that the response to my written parliamentary question was disappointing. Although I am encouraged to hear that measures are being taken to urge the Chinese Government to respect the rights of all its citizens, including those in Tibet, I appeal to the Minister today to push specifically on this issue to ensure that families do not continue to be coerced into sending their children to residential boarding schools.

Nor has religion emerged unscathed from this process, with the Chinese Government imposing a raft of restrictions that are almost certainly designed to make Tibetan Buddhism compatible with President Xi’s vision of “religion with Chinese characteristics”, as he has described it. In reality, that has meant limitations on the influence of Tibetan Buddhism in community life and monasteries repeatedly being placed under Government control and surveillance. In practice, that means all monasteries being forced to fly Chinese flags and hang portraits of political figures on their premises.

The Government are also accused of proactively coercing Tibetans into renouncing any allegiance to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, a process that also extends to outlawing the portraits of His Holiness and arresting Tibetans who carry out seemingly small acts of resistance such as calling for his return to Tibet or singing songs that wish him a happy birthday. In the past three years alone, authorities have ordered Tibetans to place shrines to President Xi and other Government leaders inside their homes in place of religious figures. The Free Tibet campaign also reports that in some counties, authorities have gone to such lengths as physically inspecting households to ensure that that order has been carried out.

Finally, I will focus briefly on Drago county in eastern Tibet. Since last October the county, which is in Sichuan province, has been the site of a series of demolitions of sites of religious and cultural significance, accompanied by arbitrary arrests and alleged torture. One such example is reports of Government officials tearing down a Tibetan Buddhist monastic school that once housed more than 100 young Tibetan students. That was followed soon afterwards by the destruction of two Lord Buddha statues, including one that stood almost 100 feet tall, the construction of which was only completed in 2015 with funds donated by Tibetans and Buddhist disciples.

Further evidence of Government aggression and destruction includes the demolition of several monks’ residences, in addition to monastery prayer flags being removed and burned. It is clear to those who witnessed those incidents that, as well as lacking any free or informed consultation with the locals, the demolitions were carried out very deliberately to cause maximum distress, with members of the community in some cases ordered to assist in tearing down schools and statues, and others forced to watch. I hope the Minister will make a note of those ongoing events, given that the forced inspections continue to take place on an almost daily basis, which has led to the lives of all those involved rapidly deteriorating.

I want to highlight that 10 March is observed annually as Tibet Uprising Day. In 1959, hundreds of thousands of Tibetans banded together to revolt, in defiance of the Chinese invasion a decade earlier. That peaceful protest was violently crushed by the Chinese Government.

In closing, I urge the Minister to heed the concerns of hon. Members on both sides and push the Governments of China and Russia to ensure that all rights are respected, and that a way of life is not imposed on people that leads to the destruction and desecration of everything from the heritage to the culture, language and even the very identity of the Tibetan people. Their voices must continue to be heard.

Global Vaccine Access

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I thank the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for securing this debate at a time when the pandemic is wreaking devastation on the poorest and most vulnerable nations on earth and brutally exposing their lack of access to vaccines. I know that she is a longstanding campaigner on the issue of equitable access to vaccines for everyone. I also thank organisations such as Global Justice Now for the important research they have done to raise awareness of this issue. I am a member of the International Development Committee; it is good to see other colleagues from the Committee attend this popular debate. The Chair of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) has done a lot of good work on this issue.

One of the reasons for the pernicious spread of coronavirus, and the high global death toll, is the failure of Governments, such as ours, to support the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights waiver, proposed by the Indian and South African Governments last summer, just months before the omicron variant emerged. That was despite India and South Africa proposing, as far back as October 2020, that a waiver of intellectual property rules on covid-19 vaccines, tests and treatments would allow low and middle-income countries to manufacture life-saving tools. Despite most countries, including the United States, supporting the waiver, the UK, the EU and Switzerland all prevented progress.

Action at the time would have led to life-saving covid vaccines, medical equipment and medicines all being produced licence-free. However, more than a year after the start of the global vaccination drive, our Government are still putting hundreds of thousands of lives at risk by not supporting the waiver. The reality is, as we all know, that no one is safe until everyone has access to vaccinations and all nations are immunised.

Sadly, instead of supporting lower and middle-income countries, our Government have actively blocked them from making their own vaccines and have continued to oppose a waiver on intellectual property rights. I would therefore like to hear the Minister respond to the concerns that she and her colleagues are continuing to block solutions to the covid pandemic, given the severity of the crisis affecting both the NHS and the economy as a result of rapidly escalating levels of omicron cases. Denying lower and middle-income countries full, unfettered access to vaccines is incredibly short-sighted and will lead to a situation whereby our own population will remain at risk.

A global disease needs a united, global effort to eradicate it and reduce the risk of further mutations. An intellectual property rights waiver is therefore a vital way to achieve that, and we must follow the lead set by the Biden Administration in supporting that. The Government abolished the Department for International Development. That was extremely short-sighted and regressive, and will ultimately cost many, many lives. What happened was shameful. To put the situation into context, in a six-week period over November and December, the EU, UK and US all received more doses than African countries took stock of in the entire year. That is truly shocking.

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

Some 700 million doses of the vaccine were delivered instead of the 2 billion that were promised through the COVAX programme by the end of the last year. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that what is inherently wrong with the COVAX programme is that it has an unequal distribution embedded in it, and for that reason ensures that facilities that are given exclusive licences are over-relied on. Facilities can also implement export bans in their countries to stop the vaccine being distributed more widely.

[Navendu Mishra]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point, and I fully agree with her.

I will finish on the point that, despite having already made billions in profit, Pfizer and Moderna continue to refuse to share the new generation of vaccine technology with the World Health Organisation’s mRNA hub in South Africa. That is a major concern, and little appears to have been done since Amnesty International urged Governments, including our own, to deliver 2 billion vaccines to low and middle-income countries before the end of 2021. The continued failure to act will fuel an unprecedented human rights crisis and lead to an untold number of deaths in those countries. We must do more, and the Government have to do a lot better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford]

I will answer the points that have been made on this, and if I have time, I will give way at the end. The flexibilities within the TRIPS system that were used to tackle the HIV/AIDS crisis are really important. We remain open to all initiatives that will have a demonstrable impact on vaccine production and distribution, and we continue to engage constructively in discussions at the World Trade Organisation to that end. However, we need to focus our efforts on actions that will make timely and substantive differences, such as further voluntary licensing and technology transfer agreements. That is why we support the voluntary licensing approach taken by the team at Oxford University and AstraZeneca. Their collaboration with the Serum Institute of India has massively scaled up manufacturing for global supply.

On manufacturing, we are also providing technical support to develop business cases for Biovac to manufacture vaccines in South Africa, to Institut Pasteur in Dakar, Senegal and to the Moroccan Government. This technical support is helping to catalyse the investment that will see those vaccines produced on the African continent this year. We are also engaging with the new Partnership for African Vaccine Manufacturing. Focusing on supporting manufacturing on the continent of Africa is absolutely one of my key priorities. However, vaccine supply must be matched by the capacity of health systems to deliver them. We have been working to support and strengthen health systems in some of the most vulnerable countries, and we recently launched the “Health Systems Strengthening” position paper, which sets out our determination to do more on building overall capacity. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke) and others point out, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is really important, and we continue to be a leading supporter. Our commitment of £1.65 billion over five years will help to vaccinate 300 million more children against preventable disease and improve health system resilience against future pandemics.

[Navendu Mishra]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. We do not have time for an intervention, I am afraid. Wendy Chamberlain has to sum up. The Minister will draw her remarks to a close.

Tigray

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Davies. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), my colleague on the International Development Committee, for securing the debate at a critical juncture for millions of Tigrayans. I also note the briefings from Oxfam, Amnesty International and Protection Approaches. As we have heard today, the escalating tensions in Tigray are deeply concerning and the international community must act urgently to put pressure on the Governments of Eritrea and Ethiopia and the Tigrayan authorities to bring an end to this latest conflict, which has now lasted almost a year and cost thousands of lives.

The UK Government must do all they can to de-escalate the rising tensions, investigate the reported war crimes and put pressure on all sides to allow non-governmental organisations to access the thousands of Tigrayans who are the victims of this conflict. Their lives remain at risk and they will continue to suffer unless urgent action is taken to permit vital aid to enter the region.

More than 400,000 people in Tigray are experiencing famine-like conditions. To put that in context, that is more than the rest of the world combined. Furthermore, the Red Cross has estimated that almost 6 million people in Tigray and the neighbouring regions of Afar and Amhara are going hungry, while an additional 1.7 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance as a result of the conflict. It is clear that we are witnessing a humanitarian crisis unfold before our eyes in Tigray.

I am a proud member of the International Development Committee. Earlier this year we urged the UK Government to intervene in the crisis to bring a swift end to the conflict and help facilitate humanitarian access. Since then, there has been a deterioration in the humanitarian situation, while the ability of non-governmental organisations and aid organisations to access the region has diminished. For example, Oxfam told Members of this House that aid organisations are struggling to transport the 100 trucks a day of food supplies that are required into the region. It is vital that the UK Government apply pressure to ensure that there is unfettered, unimpeded access to Tigray to enable that lifesaving aid to be delivered to thousands of citizens.

Given our historic relationship with the region, we should do all we can to help. Amnesty International has raised concerns that attacks and mass killings have continued unchecked since the conflict started in November 2020, with crimes against humanity taking place on both sides, between the Ethiopian and Eritrean Governments and Tigrayan rebels. Worryingly, a report this week by The Daily Telegraph revealed that, since July, soldiers occupying parts of Ethiopia’s Tigray region have been involved in what has been described as an ethnic purge of native people, who are being thrown into concentration camps and massacred by the dozen. Witnesses in the northern city of Humera, near the border with Eritrea, have claimed that soldiers from Amhara province have been conducting Taliban-type door-to-door searches for ethnic Tigrayan people, the result of which is that thousands of residents have been forced into makeshift detention centres.

Such scenes followed reports, which have since been corroborated by the UN, of Eritrean troops systematically killing hundreds of unarmed civilians in the northern city of Aksum over a two-day period in November 2020, which saw open shooting in the streets. Amnesty International has said that could amount to a crime against humanity and has also described it as just the tip of the iceberg, given the mass killings that followed. The charity has also heard shocking reports of gang rapes of people held in captivity, which they have described as sexual slavery, as well as clear examples of sexual mutilation of survivors, which is a crime under international law.

The toll on all citizens in the region has been unbearable. Since the beginning of the conflict there have been widespread and systematic campaigns of destruction and looting, including the theft of farm animals, which has significantly affected harvesting across Tigray, compounding the famine and starvation of the population.

It is clear that the UK Government cannot delay action any further. We must not lose sight of this crisis and the fate of thousands of Tigrayans while the eyes of the world are on Afghanistan, and we must continue to add pressure to allow organisations such as the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to have access to Tigray to investigate the situation further and carry out a thorough assessment of the impact of this conflict.

The charity, Protection Approaches, which works to tackle all forms of identity-based violence and mass atrocities, has rightly stated that the UK Government have a legal obligation to prevent further conflict in the region under the 1948 convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide.

It is also a matter of national interest and, left unchecked, the financial and human cost will be enormous. Much would be in keeping with what Tigrayans have already called for, which is a commitment to a negotiated end to the war. The UK should help facilitate that. Failing to support them in that endeavour would lead to an ongoing conflict that will cost tens of thousands more lives.

Beijing Winter Olympics and Chinese Government Sanctions

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab) [V]]

I want to start by thanking the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for securing this important debate. The work that he does, alongside the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law), on the all-party group for Tibet is vital in raising awareness around the human rights abuses committed by the Chinese Government.

I am grateful that the debate has been called, but it is depressing that this matter even needs to be discussed at all. This Parliament has recognised that genocide is taking place against the Uyghurs in north-west China. The motion debated in April called on the Government

“to act to fulfil its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide and all relevant instruments of international law to bring it to an end.”—[Official Report, 22 April 2021; Vol. 692, c. 1211.]

Yet here we are discussing whether it is acceptable for this country’s athletes to participate in games held in a country committing those atrocities.

I would like to draw the House’s attention to the situation in Tibet. At the time of the last Olympics held in China, in 2008, thousands of Tibetans took to the streets to protest and were brutally suppressed, with hundreds killed. The full total of deaths remains unknown. Since then, we have seen the forced erosion of Tibetan culture, from the replacement of the Tibetan language with Mandarin in schools to the repeated use of arbitrary detention and widespread torture. In addition, large religious communities have seen thousands of residents forcefully removed and their homes demolished. The rich Tibetan culture, Buddhist religion and Tibetan language are being forcefully eroded, and freedom of thought, opinion, expression, religion and conscience is being not just undermined, but actively eradicated.

I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the organisation Free Tibet. The work that it does in raising awareness of the oppression of the Tibetan people, culture and language should be placed on record. None the less, it remains unacceptable that more has not been done by this Government to call out these hideous abuses that have been going on for decades. They have pursued a foreign policy of complacency that pans out as a foreign policy of complicity.

Following the vote in April, where were the Government sanctions against China? Why have the Government not made a commitment to boycott these Olympics? What measures are being put in place to support those fleeing the oppression of the Chinese state? These are not just rhetorical questions, but points that should have been considered right back when these issues started to raise their ugly heads.

These winter Olympics provide a choice for this country: to stand up for oppressed people and human rights or to turn a blind eye to atrocities. Shamefully, this Government’s continued silence speaks a thousand words. When the HSBC bank repeatedly refused to unfreeze the assets of Hong Kong activists, including one activist who fled to our country, after they had been crowdfunding for lawsuits against police brutality, did the Government speak out? I am sure we can all guess the answer. Now we have a chance to take an international stance determined by human rights and one that recognises people’s rights to practise their religion freely, to worship, to express their views and to use their language. I would urge the Government to follow that path and call for a boycott of the winter Olympic games.

Covid-19 Vaccines: Nepal

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

I thank the hon. Lady. She is absolutely right to speak up for the Nepalese diaspora in her constituency and elsewhere. What I can add to my response to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is that the United Kingdom is stepping up. We were first out of the blocks delivering equipment, for example, to India when the second wave hit in India. Of course, whatever we do will never be enough. It is a really, really challenging situation—the hon. Lady will appreciate that—but 269 ventilator machines have been donated, and thousands of pieces of personal protective equipment. We are constructing an oxygen plant in Kathmandu, with an additional plant in Pokhara; that will be completed by August. We are stepping up. We are also working with the Gurkha Welfare Trust to help those Gurkhas who have served this country so brilliantly. Through the UK-funded welfare trust, we are ensuring that lifesaving support and supplies to Gurkha veterans and communities are getting through. That includes three medical clinics and subsidised hospital treatment.

I understand that, as of last week, just 8.8% of Nepal’s population have received a first vaccine dose and 2.6% have received both doses. I understand that some will accuse us of failing Nepal in its time of need. I can tell hon. Members that nothing could be farther from the truth. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the UK Government have reprioritised over £40 million of foreign aid through the British embassy in Kathmandu to help Nepal respond to the challenges of covid-19, and at each phase of the pandemic, as it changes and as waves come along, we have tailored our support to Nepal’s needs

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for giving way; in my experience I have always found him open to dialogue. I congratulate my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma). The Minister was right to point out, early in his speech, that the UK and Nepal have a long relationship, going back over 200 years, and the Nepali community in Britain makes a significant positive contribution to this country. I appreciate that the Minister is aware of the problems of COVAX, particularly when it comes to the delivery of vaccines. India and South Africa made a proposal at the World Trade Organisation regarding a trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights—TRIPS—waiver, that would have facilitated the provision of covid vaccines, medicines and equipment to low and middle-income countries, which unfortunately the British Government blocked. I notice that the Biden Administration have changed their position and are now supporting that TRIPS waiver. Does the Minister agree that the UK Government should also amend their position on such a waiver, to help countries such as India, Nepal and so many others?

[Nigel Adams]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we are of course acutely aware of the challenge, whether that is getting first or, in the 1.4 million cases scenario, second doses. We have supported the Government of Nepal in liaising with and approaching the secretariat about the issue. As he knows, because it was announced recently, the majority of our over 100 million shared doses will go through the COVAX facility. That will help lower and middle-income countries enormously; that roll-out has now begun. Of course we are working constantly with Governments who are in need of those vaccines.

If I may get back to Nepal, we have targeted our support at the immediate health response and at the economic consequences of lockdowns, which we are acutely aware of in our own country. We have funded water sanitation and hygiene facilities for 400,000 people, safe spaces for women in isolation centres, cash and voucher assistance for the most vulnerable, and nutritional support for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding.

In response to the second wave of covid in Nepal, we have provided additional medical support through our embassy in Kathmandu. We have funded experts to support the federal Government response. We have helped to establish temporary treatment centres in hotspots and, as I said to the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), we constructed an oxygen plant in Kathmandu, with another one coming in Pokhara next month. We have delivered medical equipment and PPE to local governments in the worst affected areas. That has included providing oxygen concentrators and ventilators for hospitals in Banke and Mugu. Throughout the pandemic, the Gurkha Welfare Trust—I referred to that in response to the hon. Member for Strangford—has been UK funded, and we have also ensured access to life-saving support and supplies to veterans and their communities.

In May, my colleague, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, who is Minister for South Asia and responsible for the Nepalese portfolio, spoke to Mr Gyawali, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to discuss what further support the UK could provide. In response to that conversation, a military flight from Brize Norton arrived in Kathmandu a week later. It carried 260 ventilators and many thousands of pieces of PPE. Make no mistake, Mr Deputy Speaker, those pieces of equipment and that assistance are saving lives in Nepal as I speak. I recognise, however, that medical supplies are only part of the solution. Vaccines are also crucial—that point has been raised in the other place on several occasions by Lord Lancaster, who takes a keen interest in Nepal.

We are playing a leading role in ensuring equitable access to vaccines for countries such as Nepal. The COVAX initiative sits at the centre of that effort, and the United Kingdom was integral to building COVAX from scratch. Our early commitment of more than £548 million, which in turn leveraged $1 billion of funding from other donors, allowed COVAX to arrange supply deals with vaccine manufacturers. Despite supply challenges, COVAX has started to make significant progress in delivering vaccines around the world, with almost 348,000 doses already delivered to Nepal, and another tranche on the way in the next few weeks.

Ninety-six per cent. of vaccines distributed by COVAX to date have been the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, including in Nepal. Clearly, the United Kingdom was crucial to the development of that vaccine. We provided £90 million to support the initial research and development, and the subsequent manufacturing required to produce the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine. What is more, we made clear that, as part of that funding, the vaccine should be affordable around the world. In total, more than 0.5 billion doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have already been delivered at a non-profit price globally, with two thirds going to lower and middle-income countries.

With United Kingdom support, a global licensing deal was also struck to transfer AstraZeneca’s technology to other manufacturers and establish 20 supply chains across the world, taking it to even more people. We have also been at the forefront of efforts around the world to boost confidence in covid-19 vaccines. Unfortunately, misinformation about vaccines—which can spread quickly, as we all know, on social media, with no respect for borders—has the potential to undermine trust and confidence in vaccines, which, ultimately and sadly, can cost lives. At the G7 global vaccine summit earlier this month, the UK Government and Google Cloud announced that they would work with some of the world’s leading tech companies on new digital solutions to tackle misinformation around vaccines.

Furthermore, the United Kingdom has supported the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to provide special finance to Nepal to tackle the consequences of covid-19, including to purchase those vaccines. The World Bank has already released $75 million and the Asian Development Bank will shortly agree an additional $165 million financing deal with the Government of Nepal. The United Kingdom supported these contributions as a shareholder in both those banks. With that finance and COVAX allocations, the Government in Nepal will be able to vaccinate seven out of every 10 Nepalis when, clearly, supplies allow.

We have also used our presidency of the G7 to spear- head a commitment from G7 members to share 1 billion vaccine doses by June 2022. At least 100 million of those vaccines will come from the United Kingdom. As the House knows, the majority of our shared doses will go to COVAX. I am sure that the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall will understand that we are not yet able to announce the detailed allocations of those, but we will endeavour to share with him and the House that information regarding the distribution as soon as possible.

Let me emphasise that the United Kingdom remains committed to supporting Nepal’s development and recovery from covid-19, and I hope that some of the measures that I have outlined in answer to hon. Members’ interventions put some clarity on what we have actually delivered for the people of Nepal. As I said, we have reprioritised over £40 million of foreign aid to help Nepal respond to this awful pandemic. We sent scores of life-saving equipment to help Nepal respond to the country’s second wave and we have played a leading role in establishing COVAX and ensuring access to vaccines for Nepal—and not just Nepal, but all developing countries.

Question put and agreed to.

Official Development Assistance and the British Council

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I express my gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for campaigning on this important issue. I also pay tribute to all the organisations and individuals who have provided support to countries across the globe, including Save the Children, the Red Cross, Oxfam, Global Justice Now and others.

I draw the House’s attention to the British Council, which works hard to encourage cultural, scientific, technological and educational co-operation with Britain. This week its CEO wrote to its Public and Commercial Services Union representative, warning that it intends to make 15% to 20% job cuts over the next two years. This is a disgrace. The programmes that the British Council undertakes internationally ensure global friendship with the United Kingdom. The Government must urgently intervene to save jobs and make funding available to plug the shortfall in the organisation.

The world has faced a catastrophic pandemic and, unless we take an internationalist view, we will never overcome this tragedy. Pulling up the drawbridge and hiding away from the rest of the world is never the answer, but that is exactly what the Government did when they made the political choice to abolish the Department for International Development and merge it with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at the height of this pandemic. DFID was an international leader on development issues, and one of the best examples of global Britain.

During these pandemic times it is often said that no one is safe until everyone is safe, but the Government’s actions speak louder than words. They have cut vital coronavirus research, including a project tackling the variant in India, by 70%, and recent media reports have informed us that the Treasury delayed plans to send surplus PPE to India over a dispute regarding its allocation towards overall aid spending.

[Alexander Stafford]

The hon. Gentleman mentions so-called cuts, but will he acknowledge the vital role this Government have played in delivering vaccines and oxygen to countries like India? Actually, this country has given a lot to many other countries during the pandemic.

[Navendu Mishra]

This Government were one of the few to oppose the proposal from the South African and Indian Governments for a TRIPS waiver that would have resulted in vaccines, medical equipment and medicines related to covid being produced licence free. That would have led to much more vaccine being available, so I urge the hon. Gentleman to lobby his Front-Bench team to make sure the UK reverses its position on this important issue. We know that President Biden of the United States has reversed his position, having initially blocked the waiver proposed by India and South Africa. The unnecessary delays to PPE going to India have deeply negative consequences. Cutting aid will have almost no impact on the UK’s finances, but it will heighten poverty in some parts of the world.

In addition, there has been a £48 million cut to the NHS overseas training scheme, which trains medical staff in some of the poorest countries. The scheme works with 500 health facilities across Africa and Asia, in places that suffer a deficit of medical staff. The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine would have seen NHS staff provide training to 78,000 healthcare workers in Nepal, Uganda, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Myanmar. The UK has 820 Bangladeshis, 118 Ethiopians, 572 Ugandans and 1,988 Nepalis working in our NHS.

The CDC Group, which promotes privatisation and unaffordable private hospitals in the global south, is due to receive £779 million this year. It seems that cuts apply only to projects that support development. Disgracefully, aid spending targeted at meeting strategic priorities will be cut by only 37%, and funding for the much-criticised conflict, stability and security fund, which last year was found to have supported brutal police squads in Nigeria, has fallen by only 19%.

This multibillion pound cut to overseas development assistance has a momentous human cost. There is no question but that these cuts will result in thousands of unnecessary deaths. Cutting programmes including humanitarian aid, global health, girls’ education, water and sanitation, food insecurity and malnutrition, and sexual and reproductive health have real consequences. The UK must return to 0.7% of GNI on ODA, under the internationally agreed definition, and the Government must bring a meaningful vote to the House on this important decision.

Finally, I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham thanking all aid workers across the world and the excellent FCDO staff. They do an important job in extremely challenging circumstances, and they deserve our support and gratitude.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anthony Mangnall]

Quite right. If I had children I would be going back to say exactly the same thing—all to come, I am sure.

The debate is also about the British Council. I have lived in Singapore and I have worked in Nigeria. I have seen the value of these organisations. I have seen the value of soft power for the United Kingdom. I look back on 2012, a moment in which the UK exhibited its global superpower soft power. We were able to show that we were leading across the world. I hate that we are going down this route and reducing the two things that promote us in the best way.

[Navendu Mishra]

Does the hon. Member agree that using an us and them attitude is not helpful? The UK is one of the richest countries in the world and has a proud record of supporting projects across the world, and dividing people into us and them is not helpful at all in this debate.

[Anthony Mangnall]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fantastic point, and it is one that I will end on. If we are uncomfortable with how people view 0.7%, it is down to this House and to us as Members to explain it properly and show them the true value of what Britain does in a globalised world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

My right hon. Friend is very kind. I suppose being the last Thatcherite is better than being the last Majorite.

Actually, funnily enough, according to the latest opinion polls, opinion is changing, because people are waking up to the fact that in the middle of a global pandemic it is probably not a very good time to cut aid—all these problems are now coming back to bite us.

[Navendu Mishra]

Does the UK not have a special responsibility when it comes to Yemen, as a permanent member of the Security Council but also as one of the largest suppliers of weapons to Saudi Arabia, which has a big role to play in the Yemen conflict?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The UK does have a role, and I fully accept the point about the Commonwealth. We have heard that we should prioritise the Commonwealth, but as we have also heard, where are these cuts falling? On the Commonwealth. But we cannot just direct our aid to the Commonwealth; we have to direct it where it is most needed.

On the Thatcherite point—and this is not the humanitarian point, because many people have made the humanitarian point, which I associate myself with—I remember, in my first Parliament, listening to Enoch Powell. He sat over there on the Opposition Back Bench. In fact, my first rebellion was to force the Government into requiring workplace trade unions to hold postal ballots, while the Minister defended workplace ballots; but I leave that to one side.

Now, what would Enoch Powell have said on this subject? He would not have liked the 0.7%, but he would have said it was ridiculous to have an arbitrary limit of 0.7%, to reduce it to another arbitrary limit of 0.5% and then to promise to increase it back to 0.7%. As he would have said—I cannot do the Birmingham accent, unlike my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield—“It is a logical absurdity. It is a nonsense built on stilts. It makes no sense” that all these civil servants, in the middle of a global pandemic, are running around cutting all these programmes, and next year, if we believe the Government—and of course the Government would never tell an untruth to the House, would they, so this is only a temporary cut—all these programmes, after this pandemic, are going to be restored. [Interruption.] The Minister is shaking his head. So are they not going to be restored?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ellwood]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I congratulate him on the work that he is doing. There is a great example of where British leadership can be seen on the international stage. Yemen requires leadership. We have been there for some time and have not utilised our relationship with the Saudis to prevent them from doing what they have been doing. We could have better harnessed our friendships and capabilities in order to bring a conclusion to that particular challenge.

I worked as a Minister in both the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as it then was—I was Minister for the Middle East and North Africa—and the Ministry of Defence, and I can confirm how siloed our Whitehall Departments still are. I concede that things are definitely getting better, but if global Britain is to have meaning, exhibiting increased resolve to play a role on the international stage, it will require greater cohesion between our internationalist-facing Departments, which even today remain too siloed.

I would go further than the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee and introduce the role of a Deputy Prime Minister, with the arc of responsibility to co-ordinate the MOD, DFID, FCO and trade initiatives, so that we can develop grand strategies to tackle some of the global hotspots that we are engaged in. We do need to expand our Whitehall bandwidth.

[Navendu Mishra]

Does the right hon. Gentleman share my view that abolishing DFID at the height of a global pandemic was a backward step, and that the role of development is far too serious to be left to the now much larger FCDO, and without a dedicated Minister at the top table?

[Mr Ellwood]

My biggest criticism about that is what is done in practice to the Department and the important voice at the Cabinet table and at the National Security Council. Now we have only the Foreign Secretary there, not another voice, and that is what we have lost.

We absolutely need to expand our Whitehall bandwidth to be able to recognise the current challenges to which we could provide solutions and also the looming ones that are coming over the horizon. This is the point I hope the Minister will listen to. The real backdrop to this debate that we must all recognise is where our complex and dangerous world is heading. If there was one welcome outcome of the G7 summit, it is the realisation that unless the west becomes less risk-averse, regroups and reunites, the next decade will get very bumpy indeed.

I have been consistent in my clear message to this House: over the next five years, the world is getting more dangerous, not less, and more complex, not less. Authoritarianism is on the rise, new power bases are emerging, and states are starting to rearm at an alarming rate. To compound matters, we now have the growing challenge of climate change, which is already having an impact on security and governance in some of the world’s most vulnerable regions. Storms, floods and droughts will affect agricultural productivity, damage economies and lead to mass migration, most notably from Africa to Europe. This goes back to the point about where the challenge is: it is not in Dover; it is actually in Africa. Simply put, global security in our ever complex and confusing world is on a worrying glide path, and right now there is no grand plan to alter the current trajectory. The threat picture is greater and more complex than during the cold war, and it requires addressing.

The political scientist Joe Nye introduced the term “soft power” a decade ago. It is the ability to influence the behaviour of others to get the outcomes we want by attracting and co-opting their support. However, in the spirit of Sun Tzu, who said:

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting”,

I argue here today that a new global soft power war or soft war is already at play, but we in the west have yet to wake up to its reality.

China is weaponising its immense soft power to significantly advance its influence and reach, and to promote its own interpretation of the international rules-based order. We are seeing this gathering apace across Africa and Asia through its one belt, one road infrastructure programmes and its gifting of 5G networks and military support to ensnare dozens and dozens of countries into its sphere of influence. It is also securing senior leadership positions in international organisations such as the United Nations to neutralise any criticism of its errant behaviour, and is now contributing ever more significant Chinese military forces to UN peacekeeping missions. As we have heard today, it is using its Confucius centres—now over 600 across the globe—to advance its message.

This will be China’s century, as it eventually overshadows and overtakes America as the dominant military, economic and technological superpower, yet here we are in Britain still failing to put two and two together. For a nation that usually prides itself on its place and influence in the world and its grasp of global situational awareness, I am genuinely baffled to understand why it is not reading and responding to this bigger picture. China is offering a competing authoritarian ideology and is leveraging its colossal economic growth to undercut western competition. On this current glide path, the world will splinter into two spheres of competing influence. Now is not the time to cut our defence budgets or our aid budgets as these threats increase, yet here we are doing both.

There is a phenomenal opportunity for British leadership here, made all the easier with the new US Administration, to craft a post-Brexit international role at the very moment the west is required to regroup. I urge this Government to listen to the voices here today in this Parliament and see the bigger picture, recognise the scale of the threat we face, invest in the statecraft and the hard and soft power tools we need, and expand Whitehall’s international bandwidth, for the actions we the west choose to take over the next few years could have implications for how the next few decades play out.

Government Support for India

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. The irony is that the Prime Minister would have been in India had it not been for this latest outbreak. I know that he will be speaking to Prime Minister Modi shortly via video link. We want to ensure that we continue that co-operation on trade, defence, climate change and health, which is absolutely key. We want to finalise a 2030 road map for future India-UK relations that will provide a strategic basis for our relationship in the coming years. We look forward to the Prime Minister meeting Prime Minister Modi as soon as practically possible. Depending on how the pandemic goes in India, there may be an opportunity for the Prime Minister to visit in person later this year.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab) [V]]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) for securing this urgent question. I have family in India and, like others, I have found the news from the country quite distressing. Do the Government believe that people in low and middle-income countries should have fair and timely access to life-saving covid vaccines and drugs? If so, are the Government willing to reverse their position on opposing the proposal from India and South Africa of a patent waiver in relation to covid vaccines, medicines and medical equipment at the World Trade Organisation?

[Nigel Adams]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we agree that low and middle-income countries should have equitable access to vaccines. That is why we are putting over half a billion pounds of UK taxpayers’ money into the COVAX arrangement, and also 1.3 billion people in those countries will be assisted by the vaccines that will be provided.

ODA Budget

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

As I said, the economic situation has been forced on us by coronavirus. May I suggest that my right hon. Friend has misrepresented the situation in the FCDO in terms of the actions our officials have taken? I have been deeply impressed by the professionalism and the speed with which FCDO officials have responded to this once-in-a-generation—once-in-a-lifetime—situation. We are keen to get back up to the 0.7% as soon as the situation allows. Our officials will look very carefully at what programmes we are not able to continue with and what programmes we will be able, or would choose, to either restart or start anew once the financial situation improves.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab) [V]]

In 2019, the UK pledged £400 million to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative between 2020 and 2023—£100 million per year. Last week, it was confirmed that the UK will contribute only £5 million to GPEI this year—a 95% cut. Will the Minister explain how his Government will make up for 2021’s shortfall in a subsequent year, and deliver on the £400 million commitment by 2023?

[James Cleverly]

I am not able to make commitments for future years. The economic situation is probably more unpredictable now than it has been in our lifetimes. What I can say is that we will seek to get the UK’s ODA target back up to 0.7% as soon as the fiscal situation allows.

World Water Day

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered World Water Day 2021.

I thank the co-sponsors of this debate, ahead of World Water Day on 22 March—the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law). It also has the support of the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) and my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson). I also thank the many organisations that have campaigned on this important issue over the years—to name just a few, WaterAid, UNICEF, Oxfam and Global Justice Now. UN Water has done important work, as has, more widely, the United Nations. I also pay tribute to We Own It, whose tireless work on water access in this country has drawn attention to the spiralling cost of water to consumers since it was first privatised in England and Wales under Margaret Thatcher’s Government in 1989.

The need for clean, accessible water is universal. It should not be a privilege for countries with the highest GDP or those that benefit from a geographical location that means they are safe from the ravages of climate change. It is a disgrace that almost half the world’s population is without access to clean water. It is even more shocking, given that we are in the midst of a global pandemic and a key factor in halting the spread of covid is people’s ability to wash their hands regularly. Despite that, figures by WaterAid reveal that more than 3 billion people are unable to wash their hands with soap and water at home, half of healthcare facilities in low-income countries lack basic water services, and 60% have no sanitation services at all.

That is set to worsen with the climate emergency, with warmer temperatures, rising sea levels, increased floods, droughts and melting ice affecting the quality and availability of water and sanitation systems. Forecasts show that, by 2040, a quarter of all children worldwide will live in areas with extremely limited water access. Data from Oxfam, which has done so much to help communities gain access to clean water, reveals that 2.4 billion people do not have access to a toilet, while a staggering 4.5 billion people lack safely managed sanitation services.

The lack of access to water is a killer. Figures from the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development show that unsafe water accounts for more than 1.2 million deaths each year. Every minute, a newborn child dies from infection caused by a lack of safe water and an unclean environment. That is backed up by WaterAid’s research, which adds that unclean births caused by limited water supply account for 11% of global maternal mortality, while approximately 20% of all global deaths are due to sepsis, which often arises from contaminated water.

This crisis is being exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic. More than half of all healthcare facilities in low-income countries are operating without access to hand-washing facilities. At present, according to WaterAid, just 5% of climate finance is spent helping countries adapt to climate change. Even less is given to the most vulnerable countries. Less than 1% of total global climate investment goes on basic water infrastructure and services. The climate emergency is the greatest challenge facing our planet, and that approach falls well short of what is urgently required.

Just a week after International Women’s Day, it is worth noting that 80% of people displaced by climate change are women. That means that, in the aftermath of disasters, women are more likely than men to be displaced and become victims of violence. Women are also more affected by droughts and water shortages, and often have to walk even longer distances to collect water. This also has enormous implications for global food production.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is listing some really important interlinkages of how water is vital to achieve all these other important goals. Of course, many of them are the sustainable development goals. Is he worried, as I am, that covid has put back much of our progress on the SDGs—particularly the water and sanitation goal—and that 2030 is looking further off than it did a year and a half ago?

[Navendu Mishra]

I fully share my hon. Friend’s concerns about the sustainable development goals.

The cost associated with tackling this issue is not prohibitive; far from it. The World Health Organisation and UNICEF estimate that providing water, sanitation and hygiene in 80% of healthcare facilities in low-income countries by 2025 would cost approximately $3.6 billion, of which $1.2 is capital costs. To put that in context, funding the initial infrastructure costs would account for just 6% of the US Government’s $20 billion budget they set aside for global health, and it represents a tiny fraction of the $732 billion the US spends on its military budget each year. And that is just one country.

In the UK, sadly, our funding has often worsened, not improved, access to water when it is linked to projects that privatise services. For example, research by Global Justice Now revealed that, over the past decade, UK aid accelerated the privatisation of public services in the global south. Overseas development aid was invested in for-profit schools, unaffordable private hospitals, water and sanitation privatisation and private sector energy projects.

That approach does long-lasting damage. For example, in the 1980s and 1990s, a wave of privatisation swept across much of the global south, with Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa particularly impacted. Many indebted Governments who turned to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to restructure their debts were subsequently forced to reduce public spending and privatise public services as a condition of future loans. Under dictator Pinochet, Chile enshrined water privatisation in its constitution, and 40 years later it continues to pay the highest rates for water in Latin America.

Despite reassurances from the Prime Minister when it was announced last year that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development would merge, the Government have since shelved their ring-fenced commitment to spend 0.7% of national income on overseas aid, cutting spending to 0.5% despite the Conservative manifesto commitment to maintain the higher target. At the start of the pandemic, DFID announced a £100 million campaign to support better hygiene practices, including access to water. At the time, the Government stated that the programme would work in 37 countries and help implement country-specific activities on safe water and sanitation. Separate funding of £20 million was also made available in a humanitarian support package. All this is now under threat.

In the UK, we are incredibly fortunate to have access to clean, safe water that has been treated and tested to the highest standards. However, in the past three decades, we have also seen the privatised model lead to spiralling costs that are not matched by investment in infrastructure and quality of service. Research by We Own It revealed that between 1989, when the UK water companies were first privatised, and 2016, water bills increased by 40%. According to the Commons Library, there were price hikes of up to 50% in the decade after water and other utility companies were denationalised—this despite UK companies paying billions to shareholders. Indeed, between 2013 and 2017 alone, UK water companies handed out more than £6.5 billion to shareholders, clearly prioritising profit over people.

While the water industry is always quick to argue that the increase in bills since privatisation has been accompanied by investment in infrastructure by companies and improvements in service quality, the reality is that the infrastructure is poorly maintained. That has resulted in the network haemorrhaging water, with more than 3 billion litres lost each day, equal to 53 litres per person, which is 21% of the water taken from the environment each day by water companies. The reality is that it is far more commercially appealing for private companies and their shareholders to buy new and often protected tracts of land to build new reservoirs, rather than fix the existing leaking infrastructure. That has led to parts of London and the south-east facing severe shortages, and responsibility for that must, at least partly, be laid at the door of water companies.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

My hon. Friend is right to point out that Britain is the only country in the world to have dabbled in complete privatisation of water. In places where Labour has maintained power, we have mutualised it and renationalised it. Many customers in Britain will be seeing rising water bills because they have been at home during covid. Does he agree that something the Government could do to help the pound in the pocket of ordinary citizens is bring water back into a mutual, non-profit structure and make sure that the money goes to where it is deserved?

[Navendu Mishra]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I remind the hon. Member that we are under massive pressure for time, so he should be looking to wind up very soon.

[Navendu Mishra]

I will, Mr Deputy Speaker. I fully share my hon. Friend’s concerns; his point about water companies going back into public hands is very valid, and I support that.

I will conclude in a moment, but first I would like to talk about the Flint water scandal. Time and again, we have seen that private water companies do not have the consumer’s best interests at heart, and the drive for increasing profit comes at the expense of health and safety. Perhaps the most notable example of that was the Flint water scandal in Michigan, which is one of the worst human-made environmental disasters in US history and a case that has been held up as a symbol of environmental injustice and racism.

In an effort to cut costs with the private water contractor, Veolia, former Governor Rick Snyder took the decision to use Flint river to supply water to the city’s predominantly African-American and economically poor population. The corrosive water, however, was not treated properly—a misstep that freed lead from old plumbing into homes. Despite desperate pleas from residents holding jugs of discoloured water, the Snyder administration and the drinking water regulator took no significant action until a doctor publicly reported elevated lead levels in children 18 months later. In the months and years that followed, 12,000 children were exposed to dangerous levels of lead, while residents experienced rashes and hair loss, and 12 people died from an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease. It is time for private water companies to be prevented from treating our environment like a sewer and finally bring water back into public ownership.



In conclusion, I call on the UK Government to continue to play their part and help alleviate the suffering and harm caused by limited access to clean water. This means ensuring that water, sanitation and hygiene are fully integrated into all health programmes supported by UK aid, as well as using our role as chair of the G7 to bring donors together to make progress towards funding the $1.2 billion that is needed to build the basic infrastructure for water, sanitation and hygiene and health facilities in low-income countries.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

To assist those taking part in the debate, the wind-ups will begin at no later than 4.36 pm with Patricia Gibson for six minutes, then Anna McMorrin at 4.42 pm for eight minutes, then Wendy Morton at 4.50 pm for eight minutes, and then Navendu Mishra will have the last two minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Navendu Mishra]

I thank all those who have taken part in this debate ahead of World Water Day on Monday. I thank the shadow Minister and the Minister for their contributions. In particular, I thank the Backbench Business Committee and my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) for supporting me with this debate.

There is overwhelming support in this country for bringing water companies back into public hands—63% are in favour, and Scotland’s publicly owned Scottish Water is the most trusted utility company in Britain. From listening to the many contributions to the debate, it is clear that there is widespread consensus that the Government must honour the UK’s international aid commitment, restore the ring-fenced aid funding and reverse the cuts that have led to a number of programmes relating to the provision of clean water, hygiene and sanitation being underfunded.

What was also communicated today is that the privatised water system in our country is not fit for purpose and that it must be brought back into public hands to ensure the highest standards and value to the consumer. It must finally be restored after decades of failure.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered World Water Day 2021.

Hong Kong: Electoral Reforms

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. We are of course liaising with our international partners, including our Five Eyes colleagues. The United Kingdom is not the only country that is offering access for Hongkongers, certainly since the national security law was introduced. He will know that this is a generous offer for BNO status holders and their dependants. As I said, we are working with international partners, across Government and alongside civil society groups and others to make sure there is effective integration of BNO status holders when they arrive in the United Kingdom.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab) [V]]

Several international media outlets have reported gross human rights abuses in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet. Today, 10 March, marks the anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising against the presence of the People’s Republic of China and the subsequent crackdown on Tibetan independence groups. Does the Minister agree that senior Chinese Government officials who are responsible for these abuses should be sanctioned through the global human rights Magnitsky sanctions legislation?

[Nigel Adams]

The hon. Member is right to mention Tibet. He knows the answer in terms of Magnitsky sanctions. We are very concerned about the human rights situation in Tibet, where there are restrictions on freedom of religion or belief, assembly and association, as well as reports of forced labour. We are urging China to respect all fundamental rights across the People’s Republic of China, including in Tibet, in line both with China’s own constitution and with the international framework to which it is a party.