Nagorno-Karabakh: Armenian Refugees

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2024 Westminster Hall

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

I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) on securing yet another debate on Armenia and Armenians. We have spoken a lot in this Chamber and in the main Chamber. We have had my private Member’s Bill—the Recognition of Armenian Genocide Bill—and others, and we had a debate on the Lachin corridor blockade at the start of the recent problem. I declare an interest as chair of the all-party group for Armenia and as part of a delegation that went to Armenia last Easter at the invitation of the Armenian Government. There is strong interest in the subject, not only among colleagues here today but in the overflowing Public Gallery, for which extra furniture has had to be provided. That does not happen often.

We had an alarming and sobering briefing yesterday from the former human rights ombudsman for Armenia, Dr Tatoyan. He gave us an update on the latest threat facing Armenia, as well as the chronology of what has happened in Nagorno-Karabakh over the past year.

I agree with everything that the hon. Member for Glasgow North West and my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) have said, so I will not repeat it, but will highlight the origins of the issue. The recent conflict goes back to 27 September 2020 when Azerbaijan, emboldened by strong military support from Turkey and with equipment provided by Israel, among others, launched an unprovoked and large-scale military invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Over 44 consecutive days, Azerbaijan relentlessly assaulted Nagorno-Karabakh, resulting in the tragic loss of over 400 Armenian lives. Civilian infrastructure, including churches, schools and hospitals, became deliberate targets of Azerbaijan. There was a particular concern, as the hon. Member for Glasgow North West mentioned, about some of the Christian relics and monuments, because Armenia was, of course, the first Christian country. We do not have to go far in Armenia or Nagorno-Karabakh to see the history behind that.

The conflict ended in a ceasefire agreement on 9 November 2020 between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, but the trilateral statement was heavily skewed against Armenia. Let us fast-forward to the end of 2022 and the blockade of the Lachin corridor, with bogus eco-protesters supposedly blockading that vital corridor between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. Azerbaijan completely ignored all orders under international law and the International Court of Justice to clear the corridor. Instead, Azerbaijani soldiers replaced the protesters.

On 19 September last year Azerbaijan launched a full-scale offensive, piling into Nagorno-Karabakh, mercilessly reoccupying territory and driving Armenians out of the homes that they had been in for generations. They blockaded escape routes out of the territory, as we heard yesterday, and took a number of military and political prisoners—specific individuals.

Despite the Azerbaijani Government’s having assured an amnesty, they took into captivity former Nagorno-Karabakh Presidents Arkady Ghukasyan, Bako Sahakyan and Arayik Harutyunyan. They remain in captivity. Other political prisoners of war include Ruben Vardanyan, Davit Ishkhanyan, Davit Babayan, Davit Manukyan and Levon Mnatsakanyan—Hansard will be relieved to know that I have provided details of those individuals.

What was the result of all that? Frankly, it was full-scale ethnic cleansing. The population of Nagorno-Karabakh used to be 160,000 before the 2020 war. Women, the elderly and sick people were evacuated during the initial bombings, and many never went back after the ceasefire in November 2020. The very sick and some students left Nagorno-Karabakh during the blockade. It is estimated most recently that after the attacks in September 2023, 105,000 Armenians left Nagorno-Karabakh, in a state of chaos, on blocked roads that took hours and days to negotiate.

It has been calculated that Nagorno-Karabakh is almost completely empty of its original population, with just 50 people remaining. Armenian sources report that those people who remained due to age or physical and mental conditions are even unable to use their mobile phones. That huge surge of people into Armenia has had an impact on the population of Armenia, which is not a large country of 2.8 million population. Just over 100,000 represents 3% of that country’s population suddenly appearing on its doorstep.

It is also a country that lacks funds and a long-term plan, so it has been a really difficult set of circumstances to cope with. The Armenian Government have generously given one-off payments of $250 to the refugees, followed by a $185 monthly stipend. The average wage in Armenia is $668 a month. A quarter of the Nagorno-Karabakhans were already living below the official poverty line.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North West mentioned that there had been pledges of support from the EU, but there has been a big delay in the disbursement of those funds and funds from other countries. The UK has so far pledged only £1 million, which is a good start but does not reflect the scale of a humanitarian crisis that has gone so under the radar because the world’s attention, as we know, is on what is going in Ukraine and in Israel and Gaza. Those new arrivals from Nagorno-Karabakh include 30,000 children and 18,000 aged over 65. There are many men with limbs missing from war injuries and landmine explosions from the conflict. This is a population in above-average need of help and support.

What has Azerbaijan done? Azerbaijan is trying completely to remodel, rename and reculturalise—if there is such a word—the entire territory. In October last year, Azerbaijan renamed one of the streets in the city of Stepanakert after Enver Pasha, one of the architects of the Armenian genocide. What more hostile, provocative act could there be? In March, just a few days ago, footage was aired on Azerbaijan television of various buildings and monuments in the capital Stepanakert, including its historic parliament building, being demolished for no good reason.

There are more than 4,000 Armenian historical and cultural monuments across Nagorno-Karabakh, among them churches, khachkars, burial grounds, historical cemeteries and bridges. There is a real concern about the future of the culture of Armenians left behind in Nagorno-Karabakh that could not be taken out of the country.

[Carol Monaghan]

When we were in Jermuk, we saw two khachkars—the posts with crosses—that had been removed from Nagorno-Karabakh. They were in pieces. We were told that there were many thousands that people could not take with them. The ones that we saw were more a thousand years old, and there will be many others left behind. It is real cultural destruction.

[Tim Loughton]

It is completely gratuitous, unnecessary cultural destruction. It is all about trying to erase the name, the culture, the history and the heritage of a people who have lived in that territory for many, many generations. After the 2020 invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Government of Azerbaijan blatantly issued a set of postage stamps picturing a man in a hazmat suit, effectively cleaning out Armenians from the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. That is ethnic cleansing, in any shape or form that one might describe it.

We have a number of asks for the Minister today. Notwithstanding our long-standing and important economic links with Azerbaijan, we have humanitarian responsibilities and a long-standing relationship with Armenia, Armenians, and the Armenian diaspora across the world and in the United Kingdom. Will the Government investigate whether ethnic cleansing under the UN definitions has taken place? If so, what are the implications of that? Will the Government press for investigation in respect of both political and military prisoners who are still being held by the Azeris?

What will the Government do to put pressure on the Azerbaijanis to withdraw from the 4,400-square-kilometre territory within sovereign Armenian boundaries that they are still occupying—some 30 or so villages? As we have heard, there is great alarm that they may make further military encroachments deeper into clear, sovereign Armenian territory in the very near future.

There need to be consequences for these abuses of international law. There need to be sanctions. I think the UK has a role to play in any peacekeeping force that could go back in to make Nagorno-Karabakh and the borders of Armenia safe, because this is a very fragile situation. We have a duty of care here. One of the duties of this House is to make the world aware of this ethnic cleansing and this huge humanitarian crisis—it may have been going on beneath the world’s radar while its attention is turned elsewhere, but that makes it no less serious a humanitarian crisis—that is going on as we speak.

Human Rights in Hong Kong

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of human rights in Hong Kong.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. It is another week, and yet another debate on China and its abuses—of its citizens and beyond its territorial borders. In this Chamber and the main Chamber, we have discussed the abuses against the Tibetans, the Uyghurs and other people within the confines of China and beyond. Today I want to discuss the situation of dwindling human rights in Hong Kong.

Fortuitously, it is particularly topical to debate this motion today, during the pantomime of the trial of Jimmy Lai that continues in Hong Kong. Also today, as we speak, the Chinese Government face their universal periodic review at the United Nations. I will say more about that later.

The implementation in 2020 of the notorious national security law has led to the drastic erosion of the freedoms of the people of Hong Kong that were once greatly enjoyed under the Sino-British joint declaration. Beijing’s introduction of that draconian law is a direct attack on the “one country, two systems” framework that we have a particularly strong interest as well as a duty and obligation to make sure is being upheld. The future of human rights in Hong Kong is bleak. I want to thank Hong Kong Watch, the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, not just for the various briefings they have provided for the debate but for their ongoing sterling work in this area to highlight the injustices being done to the once democracy-loving people in Hong Kong.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for his introduction and for securing such an important debate. He mentioned Jimmy Lai; the trial began last December, and China is treating him as a Chinese citizen even though he has dual nationality. Does the hon. Member believe that the Government should follow Labour’s idea, and appoint a special envoy for arbitrary detention for British and dual nationals held abroad? If not, what does he suggest?

[Tim Loughton]

I will come to Jimmy Lai. I was not aware of any policy statement that the Labour party may have made, but the particular point about Jimmy Lai is that he is not a dual national: he is a British citizen. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and I, with others, have espoused that argument in this Chamber on numerous occasions and have got absolutely nowhere with Ministers, until recently with the new Foreign Secretary, from whom, I am glad to say, we have at last had the admission that Jimmy Lai is a British citizen—end of story. As such, he is entitled to all the consulate and other protections to which any other British citizen being persecuted against all natural tenets of law is entitled. I will come back to the Jimmy Lai trial.

There is no greater symptom or expression of the oppression that is going on in Hong Kong than the mass exodus of its citizens on a daily basis. Since the introduction of the national security law in 2020, Hong Kong residents have felt the strangulation of their freedoms. As a consequence, many have chosen to leave what has been their home for decades and generations, to escape persecution under that draconian law.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech and he is a doughty campaigner on this issue. It is fair to say that those who have come over on British national overseas visas have made an extraordinary contribution to our society; for example, the Liberal Democrats are really proud of Councillor Ying Perrett, who was elected to Surrey Heath Borough Council just last year. However, for those who are already here, their children are not allowed to come here on BNO visas in the same way; they have to apply through the Chinese consulate and have to go back to Hong Kong. The hon. Gentleman mentioned a change in tone from the Foreign Secretary. Has he had any words with the Home Secretary about a change in the rules, so that the children of Hongkongers who want to be here longer term do not have to go through that rigmarole?

[Tim Loughton]

Without being as parochial as to mention every one of the 191,000 applications for the BNO visa route so far, this is a subject that has been raised. It was also raised in the Home Affairs Committee, which I sit on, and we had a private session with people from Hong Kong who were escaping the clutches of the Chinese Government. I am well aware, and have made representations, that we need to ensure that people who technically have not been included in that net, although it has been broadened, can be given those protections as well. The hon. Lady makes a valid point, but I cannot comment on her particular district councillor.

The mass exodus has amounted to over 500,000 residents leaving Hong Kong since the beginning of 2021. As I have said, there have been 191,000 applications for the BNO visa route. According to the Home Office, 144,500 Hongkongers have already moved to the UK, and that last figure is rising as we speak. Hong Kong’s population has therefore experienced a net loss since the introduction of the national security law and is in decline for the third year in a row. Hong Kong used to be a colony that was ever-expanding and where everybody wanted to go to have an exciting future, but it is now shrinking; it is a shadow of its former self.

Since the implementation of the NSL, Hong Kong has seen a marked decrease in various world rankings of liberty—most noticeably in Freedom House’s global freedom ranking, where it has dropped 17 places. Hong Kong has seen significant declines in the rule of law, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, with think-tanks citing China’s increasing restrictions on civil liberties as a factor. After Myanmar, Hong Kong experienced the steepest drop in such rankings. It ranked 140 out of 180 locations for international press freedoms, according to Reporters Sans Frontières, which leaves it trailing behind Colombia and Cameroon.

We have also seen the forced closure and hounding out of many civil society organisations, non-governmental organisations and charities. It has been calculated that as of December 2023, no fewer than 800 such organisations had been forced to close, with over 285 people arrested—172 of whom were prosecuted for allegedly endangering national security.

In 2021, Amnesty International had to close two of its offices in Hong Kong. The Apple Daily Charitable Foundation was removed from the list of Hong Kong registered charities. The New School for Democracy, which was founded by Wang Dan, an exiled student leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, has had to move to Taiwan following the implementation of the national security law. The Global Innovation Hub—a German think-tank that was expelled from China in 1997—has moved from Hong Kong to Taiwan, also citing the national security law.

The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions was dissolved in 2021; the Civil Human Rights Front, a pro-democracy group that organised some of Hong Kong’s biggest protests, said it had no choice but to disband; and human rights lawyers based in Hong Kong are fleeing abroad amid China’s effort to cleanse the city of dissent. In 2021, the Progressive Teachers’ Alliance, Hong Kong’s largest teaching union, was disbanded; that same year, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China was among other unions dissolved amid national security fears; and recently the 4 June vigil to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre has been banned.

Press outlets have also been closed down, and not just Apple Daily—Jimmy Lai’s paper, which we hear so much about—and its sister publication, Next Magazine: Stand News closed after being raided by police, and senior staff were arrested; Citizen News was forced to shut down amid the Government crackdown; and FactWire, an investigative news outlet, closed down, with its leaders citing safety concerns for staff.

Many of the guardians of free speech in Hong Kong have been arrested, prosecuted and jailed, if they were not able to flee. We particularly think of those, like Jimmy Lai, who stayed and made an honourable and brave stand to face up to the intolerance. That led to the prosecution that is going on now—the biggest pantomime in the far east.

Before 2019, the number of political prisoners went from nought to 1,775. Hong Kong now has one of the fastest growing political prisoner populations in the world, rivalling authoritarian states such as Cuba, Myanmar and Belarus. Further, Hong Kong has the highest number of female political prisoners in the world, at approximately 1,347. Many famous people have been incarcerated along with Jimmy Lai. They are, undoubtedly and without dispute, political prisoners in a place that used to boast of freedom of speech, democracy and all the liberties that we in this country take for granted.

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

This is possibly the most important part of the many aspects of the destruction of freedom and liberty in Hong Kong: the absence of a free and fair court system. It shows why Jimmy Lai’s case is so important, as the one that we can hear about most easily in this country when there are so many hundreds of others. Does the hon. Gentleman share my frustration that, after all this time, seeing what we can now see about what the court system has come to in Hong Kong, there are still retired British judges operating in that jurisdiction?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

I take the right hon. Gentleman’s point entirely. He has done so much through the all-party parliamentary group on Hong Kong to flag up the outrages going on there. On the British judges who have been brought up, and have trained and practised in one of the most respected legal domains in the world and who have then gone out to Hong Kong for semi-retirement jobs: that they can continue to practise in a place that has so blatantly snuffed out all the basic tenets of international law and freedoms that we all take for granted is extraordinary. If they have not been banned from doing so, out of a sense of decency for their own profession and the values that they are able to practise in this country but not in Hong Kong, they should come back as a matter of urgency.

I return to the matter of the democratic process. Voting has become something of a pantomime, declining hugely with new rules that only allow for patriots-only elections—however the Chinese Communist Government may define that. The new rules led to a collapse in voter turnout to just 27.5% in 2023, in stark contrast with the pre-national security law days when that figure was typically well into the seventies.

Religious persecution has also become commonplace. There are more than 1 million followers of Taoism and more than 1 million Buddhists in the country. Yet, according to 18 pastors and religious experts interviewed by the Washington Post,

“churches have been pushed into censoring themselves and avoiding appointing pastors deemed to have political views, and at least one major church is restructuring itself in case the government freezes its assets.”

Fears around the national security law have led to widespread self-censorship by clergy in their sermons, just as it has in Tibet and Xinjiang. In Tibet, for instance, simply to possess a photograph of His Holiness the Dalai Lama is instantly punishable with a prison sentence—typically of five years. That shows absolutely extraordinary intolerance.

Businesses are in decline and leaving Hong Kong. More than 50% of Hong Kong professionals have considered leaving the city, according to one recent survey. Democracy has been snuffed out in Hong Kong and the right to oppose politically has effectively been snuffed out there too. Scrutineers of free speech and liberty have been closed down and either forced to flee Hong Kong all together or incarcerated. Press freedom has certainly been completely snuffed out, which also explains why the Hong Kong Government plan to install no fewer than 2,000 additional CCTV cameras in public places so they can spy on the population to make sure it is doing what it is told by its Chinese Communist Government masters.

The number of political prisoners has gone through the roof. For those members of the Hong Kong population who have not been able to join the mass exodus, China has killed the golden goose that used to be Hong Kong, previously a bastion of liberty, opportunity, democracy and entrepreneurialism.

I will touch on the Jimmy Lai trial, which opened on 18 December 2023. He is a British citizen, as the Government have at last acknowledged, who founded the now defunct Apple Daily—the largest pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong at the time. He is now facing three charges under Hong Kong’s Beijing-imposed National Security Law, carrying a maximum punishment of life in prison, and a charge of conspiracy to publish seditious publications.

On 2 January, Jimmy Lai pleaded not guilty to conspiring to collude with foreign forces in publishing allegedly seditious materials at his trial under Hong Kong’s national security law, after multiple delays before the trial actually started.

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

My hon. Friend is making an excellent case. Since the first group of British citizens he referred to was named, the British ex-consul general to Hong Kong has also been named in this process. Unless I have missed something, I have not heard the Foreign Office say anything about the naming of its ex-consul general in those terms. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is rather strange that an ex-employee of the Foreign Office, who represented it in Hong Kong, has been named in a trial, but somehow the Foreign Office has not said a word about it?

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and fellow China sanctionee. I am not sure whether I should have declared that at the beginning; it is not a quite a registered interest, but it is certainly an interest that many people register these days. We remain censored for, I think, coming up to three years. I agree absolutely with my right hon. Friend, because this trial has gone beyond just Jimmy Lai, as I will mention. There are other people mentioned who are closer to home physically.

The prosecution rapidly named several foreign politicians and human rights activists, including the former consul general mentioned by my right hon. Friend, with whom Mr Lai had been in contact in recent years, and showed headshots of them. Among them are Hong Kong Watch co-founder and chief executive, Benedict Rogers, and the executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China—IPAC—Luke de Pulford, both of whom I call friends. They have done so much for the cause of liberty for those people within China.

Also named are the US consul general to Hong Kong, Ambassador James Cunningham, who chairs the board of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong; Bill Browder, the human rights campaigner, with whom we are all familiar as the pioneer of the introduction of Magnitsky sanctions worldwide; the former member of the Japanese Parliament, Shiori Kanno; and the former British consul general, as my right hon. Friend mentioned.

[Layla Moran]

I want to add my admiration for all those who have been sanctioned, including the hon. Member and other Members of this House, because they choose to speak out; we ask ourselves what more we can do so that we can join that list. Does it not stick in the hon. Member’s throat that the Chief Executive, John Lee, has yet to be sanctioned by this Government in any way? Bill Browder himself has called for Magnitsky-style sanctions on him. Is this not the time?

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Lady is leaping ahead. If she will exercise a little patience, I will come to endorse entirely that point, and beef it up a bit.

In response to those being named in the trial, six patrons of Hong Kong Watch—including other fellow sanctionees Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws and Lord Alton of Liverpool—wrote to the Foreign Secretary, urging him to take action, and calling on the UK Government to implement Magnitsky-style sanctions on the Hong Kong Chief Executive, John Lee, including asset freezes and a travel ban; the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) was very prescient. To quote Lord Alton,

“It is simply an assertion of Chinese Communist Party authoritarianism. It makes a mockery of the rule of law. The only conspiracy is that which is being organised by opponents of justice, democracy and human rights. This show trial should be ended forthwith, and the UK Government should say so loud and clear.”

To add to that, the Minister will know that two British citizens are named conspirators with Jimmy Lai on his third charge of colluding with foreign forces to undermine national security. Those citizens are Bill Browder and Luke de Pulford. To my knowledge, this is the first time that foreign citizens have been formally connected to a national security law offence in Hong Kong. Legal advice that I have seen is that this means the prosecution in Jimmy Lai’s case wish to make those British nationals criminally culpable. That being the case, why has the UK not said anything about it yet? Perhaps when she comes to respond, the Minister can specifically address that point.

I have several asks of the Government, as put forward by some of those who have briefed us. First, we call on the Government to continue to reaffirm their support for Jimmy Lai and urge the Prime Minister to call for Jimmy Lai’s immediate and unconditional release. It would be nice for the Prime Minister to say that loudly and openly in reference specifically to Jimmy Lai. Secondly, the UK Government should swiftly issue a strong statement in response to the Hong Kong Government’s targeting those three British citizens—Benedict Rogers, Luke de Pulford and Bill Browder—during the trial. Thirdly, the UK Government should implement Magnitsky-style targeted sanctions on Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee, including asset freezes and a travel ban to protect Hongkongers in Britain and around the world. Fourthly, the British Government should urge like-minded Governments to specifically mention the case of Jimmy Lai in their recommendations to China at today’s periodic review.

There has been another outrage that completely undermines all the principles of international law involving those who have fled to the UK for safe haven from Hong Kong: the use of bounties on pro-democracy activists—a particular affront to international law. On 14 December 2023, the Hong Kong Government issued arrest warrants for five exiled Hong Kongers who now live and advocate for democracy in the US or the UK, with bounties of 1 million Hong Kong dollars. Among those five is 33-year-old Simon Cheng, who founded Hongkongers in Britain, the largest UK-wide Hong Kong diaspora organisation. He is charged with allegedly inciting secession and collusion between August 2020 and June 2022. Those five arrest warrants followed the arrest warrants and bounties issued for eight overseas Hong Kong pro-democracy activists in July 2023. Those warrants were condemned by Hong Kong Watch, as were the many instances of the Hong Kong Government targeting their families and colleagues in Hong Kong. They also target families beyond the borders of China and Hong Kong, which is particularly chilling. We have seen examples where they freely intimidate families of those people who have escaped from Hong Kong, even on the streets of the United Kingdom.

In response to the issuance of the arrest warrants and bounties in December 2023, the Foreign Secretary said:

“I have instructed officials in Hong Kong, Beijing and London to raise this issue as a matter of urgency with the Hong Kong and Chinese authorities.

We will not tolerate any attempt by any foreign power to intimidate, harass or harm individuals or communities in the UK. This is a threat to our democracy and fundamental human rights.”

Hear, hear! I entirely welcome those words, but what is being done about it? The Chinese understand only the threat of actions with consequences, and that is the problem. Tough words do not usually cut the mustard with China, unless there is a reasonable expectation that those tough words will lead to consequences, and we need to see consequences.

I again have some asks of the British Government. Following the welcome statements that I have just quoted, the British Government should press the Hong Kong authorities to withdraw immediately the 13 arrest warrants with bounties on Hongkongers in the UK, the US and Australia. Secondly, will the Government introduce measures to protect the rights and freedoms of Hong Kong activists in exile, particularly those who have been granted asylum and have faced past and current threats from Beijing? Thirdly, will the Government urge like-minded Governments to suspend the remaining extradition treaties between democracies and the Hong Kong and Chinese Governments, and work towards co-ordinating an Interpol early warning system to protect Hongkongers and other dissidents abroad who may fall within the tentacles of the Chinese authorities? Fourthly, will the British Government urge like-minded Governments to raise these arrest warrants and bounties again at the periodic review, which is happening today?

Again, we have seen no sign of sanctions against any Hong Kong officials, while seven parliamentary colleagues, including myself and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green, remain sanctioned. We now hear that the Foreign Secretary wants to visit Hong Kong. The last Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Braintree (James Cleverly), went to China and took up the case of Jimmy Lai, and the case of those of us who are sanctioned, but I am afraid came back with nothing. So quite why the new Foreign Secretary thinks that he wants to go to China—and presumably will take up the case again—and can come back with something, I do not know. Surely there are other platforms available to him, where he can make those calls on China without having to go and be seen to be paying court to the Chinese Communist Government in Beijing.

The Hong Kong Government’s Security Bureau recently put forward article 23 of the Basic Law to be discussed by the Legislative Council within its 2024 session. It is highly likely that that locally legislated national security provision will be passed and implemented by the end of this year. Article 23 aims to

“prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organisations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organisations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organisations or bodies.”

Since the enactment of the Hong Kong national security law, which was passed by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China in 2020, these draconian laws have devastated the civil society and caused widespread chilling effects among the people of Hong Kong. This will only make that worse and embed it in the tyranny that is now engulfing Hong Kong.

I will briefly touch on the question of the financial pressures that the Chinese Government are bringing on Hongkongers. The Mandatory Provident Fund is a compulsory retirement savings scheme for the people of Hong Kong. For most Hongkongers it is their main pension pot, as the state pension is very low. Hongkongers can withdraw their entire MPF savings only if they make a declaration that they have departed Hong Kong permanently, with no intention of returning.

However, the Mandatory Provident Fund Authority, which governs the MPF, stated in 2021 that, because the BNO—or British national overseas—passport was no longer recognised as a valid travel document, those trying to withdraw MPF funds early could not use the BNO passport as proof of identity. As a result, BNO visa holders who leave Hong Kong continue to be denied access to their pension savings.

That is a punitive action by the Hong Kong Government, and Hong Kong Watch estimates that Hongkongers who fled to the UK on the BNO visa are being denied access to some £2.2 billion in savings. HSBC, headquartered in London, holds around 30% of the total value of all MPF schemes, and it is estimated that HSBC is currently withholding £660 million in savings from Hongkongers with BNO status who now live in the UK.

That is an official status recognised by the UK Government for those legitimately coming to seek safe refuge in the UK, and a company that is headquartered in the UK, and is subject to UK corporate and other laws, is withholding money from its rightful pensioners. The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation needs to decide which side it is on—freedom and liberty and the international rule of law, or kowtowing to the tyrants who now have their footprints all over Hong Kong. Therefore, financial measures are just another way that the Chinese Communist Government are imprinting their tyranny on Hong Kong.

You will be relieved to hear that I have almost come to an end, Mr Twigg, but I have just some other examples of where we really must stand up to what the Chinese Government are doing. Yesterday, Ms Choi Yuk-lin, the Secretary for Education in Hong Kong, began her official visit to the United Kingdom and Finland. That official trip comes despite the UK Government’s acknowledgment that Hong Kong’s national security law, passed in 2020, is a direct violation of the 1984 Sino-British joint declarations—fine for the words, but again, where are the consequences?

Ms Choi Yuk-lin is known for her public support of the national security law. She has consistently asserted that post-secondary education institutions, including their staff and students, are bound by the law. However, under her watch the Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union—Hong Kong’s largest teachers’ union, with more than 95,000 members and representing 90% of the profession—was disbanded in 2021 after coming under fire in the Chinese state media. Mark Sabah, the director of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, said:

“This is yet another example of the British Government seemingly ignoring all the violations of the Sino-British Declaration and all the attacks on free speech in Hong Kong and inviting a Hong Kong Government official to the UK, while a British citizen, Jimmy Lai, still sits in jail on spurious National Security Law charges”

and we remain sanctioned. He went on to say:

“There is no chance that Ms Choi is here to support Hong Kong students when she is personally responsible for tearing down academic freedom in Hong Kong across schools and university Campuses.”

She is not the first representative of the Chinese Government to be welcomed here in London, I am afraid, with the acquiescence of Ministers. I will not embarrass the Minister responding today by mentioning another photo opportunity, which she was involved with, by a particularly dodgy member of the Chinese Government responsible effectively for kidnapping the protesters and dissidents and taking them back to China to face unfair trials.

As we speak and as I have said, the universal periodic review of China is happening. However, the point is, will China take any notice? This is the first time it has happened since 2018. It is a unique process at the United Nations, whereby every single member state is scrutinised for its human rights record every four to five years. China’s last UPR was in 2018 and, as we know, a lot has happened since then; the problem is that it is not good. Since the last UPR, no region of the People’s Republic of China has changed more dramatically, significantly or rapidly for the worse than Hong Kong. Since 2018, it has transformed from one of Asia’s most open societies to one of its most repressive police states. It has gone from having a legislature with a significant number of elected pro-democracy members to a place where many of those legislators are now in jail; the entire pro-democracy camp is completely excluded from contesting any elections and both the legislature and the district councils are filled with pro-Beijing quislings, making them nothing more than puppet rubber stamps that are subsidiaries of the National People’s Congress. We have had the “Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism” against the Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims since the last review. We have had the huge roll-out of surveillance technology since the last review. It has not responded to the criticisms in 2018 on women’s rights, where China failed to stem the trafficking of women and girls, including those from neighbouring countries. There has been a crackdown on freedom of expression, as we have heard. China received 346 recommendations from 150 countries back in 2018. It accepted 284 of them, but questionably many were just noted as accepted and already implemented—of course they were not.

Last week, the Minister responding today sent all colleagues a letter marked, “Dear colleague…A Year in Sanctions”. She started by saying:

“This Government has broken new ground on sanctions in 2023, continuing to lead the international effort to ratchet up pressure on Putin’s war machine, whilst deploying the UK’s autonomous powers in response to serious human rights violations and abuses, cyber attacks and serious corruption across the world.”

It is a good record. It talks about Russia; it talks about sanctions for metals and diamonds and for oil; it talks about reconstruction efforts in Ukraine and who will pay for them. It talks about Hamas, Iran and cyber. Nowhere in this four-page letter does it mention the subject of China or Hong Kong or any possibility of sanctions against that country.

Many petitions to this place have been responded to by the Government. On 7 June 2021, there was a petition to sanction Hong Kong officials responsible for human rights violations, to which the official Government response was:

“We carefully consider sanctions designations. It is not appropriate to speculate who may be designated in the future or we risk reducing the impact of the designations.”

In January 2022, there was a petition urging Hong Kong to release all political prisoners. The Government responded:

“As a co-signatory to the Joint Declaration, we will continue to stand up for the people of Hong Kong, to call out the violation of their freedoms, and to hold China to their international obligations.”

How exactly? In August 2023 there was a petition to sanction individuals responsible for Sino-British joint declaration breaches in Hong Kong. The response sounds familiar:

“We keep all sanctions designations under close and regular review. We do not speculate about future sanctions designations, as to do so could reduce their impact.”

The problem is: there are no consequences. I started my rather too lengthy words speaking about our particular interest and obligation to defend the liberties and lives of the people in Hong Kong that we once had responsibility for directly. We have sanctioned people from across the world, most notably Russia, for their blatant warmongering, corruption and other issues. All of the crimes against humanity, the international rule of law, freedom, liberty and democracy are being waged in Hong Kong as we speak, yet not a single person in the Chinese Government in Hong Kong has been subject to any sanction by the Government.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

Does my hon. Friend not also find it peculiar that Britain, which is the co-signatory of the agreement, has not sanctioned any of the officials responsible for the national security law, which he referred to, whereas the United States, which is not a signatory and has no historical link to Hong Kong, has sanctioned 10 of the most senior people? Does that not seem peculiar?

[Tim Loughton]

It is not just peculiar; it is outrageous. We have good examples of where the States has not only talked tough but followed it through with consequences and I think gets greater respect from the Chinese authorities because it is likely to do something about it. There is no excuse for us not taking an equally robust stance against the Chinese Communist party Government if we share those values and ideals of liberty, democracy and freedom that those brave people in Hong Kong have had to stand up for in the most outrageous of circumstances.

The future of human rights in Hong Kong is not bright. We have a duty not just to point that out, but to make it clear to China that if they do not get their act together there will be consequences, and the British Government will make sure that they are made to pay and are called out for this outrageous intimidation of the citizens of Hong Kong and their flouting of the international legal obligations that we all take for granted.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for securing this important debate and for his characteristically powerful and challenging speech on this issue. I welcome the contributions of all right hon. and hon. Members. I will do my best to respond in the time remaining, using the information that I have brought with me. I commit to writing in response to those issues that I am not able to cover today.

China committed to uphold the Sino-British joint declaration until at least 2047. This treaty set out many of Hong Kong’s human rights or, to use the language of the joint declaration, “rights and freedoms”. However, as colleagues have articulated so clearly and forcefully, the national security law, introduced in 2020, has irretrievably damaged Hong Kong’s promised rights and freedoms. Freedom of speech, assembly and the press have deteriorated dramatically.

When Beijing imposed this law in 2020, the authorities promised it would be used exceptionally and that it would target only a small number of criminals. Instead, the law has been applied far beyond genuine national security concerns. The Hong Kong authorities have used it to target critics across society time and again. They have prosecuted pro-democracy campaigners, journalists and community leaders. The vague provisions of the law have created a culture of self-censorship, as a number of colleagues have highlighted, restricting Hong Kong’s extraordinary vibrancy.

The high degree of autonomy promised in the joint declaration has also been compromised by an overhaul of electoral systems, which has meant that Hongkongers are no longer legitimately represented, and meaningful political opposition has been all but eliminated. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) set out how powerfully that is understood by those who have been able to come here and see what a democracy still in full flight looks like.

The Foreign Secretary has called on the Chinese authorities to repeal the national security law, and to end the prosecution of all individuals charged under it. The UK made clear our strong opposition to the national security law immediately, declaring its imposition a further breach of the joint declaration. We took robust action as soon as the national security law came into force, including by creating our bespoke visa route for British nationals overseas—an avenue for those who wish to leave the city. To date we have granted more than 184,000 visas, and that door remains open.

We suspended the UK-Hong Kong extradition treaty indefinitely, and extended to Hong Kong the arms embargo that has applied to mainland China since 1989. We continue to alert British nationals and businesses to the impact of the national security law and the risk that it poses through our travel advice and overseas business risk guidance on gov.uk. That is kept under close review. We always try to signpost everyone to it, so that they are fully aware of the realities.

Colleagues have reiterated today the strength of their feeling about the imposition of sanctions on those responsible for the erosion of rights and freedoms in Hong Kong. I continue to listen closely to those views, as do my officials, and we will continue to consider designations under the Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020.

As colleagues know, I appreciate the frustration, but we do not speculate about future designations, as that could reduce their impact. However, I can confirm that we never rule out sanctions or other designations on any individual entity; I hope that reassures my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith).

[Tim Loughton]

I waived my right to reply, but will the Minister accept a challenge? Everything that she has said endorses just about everything that I have said, but there are no consequences. Every time we have a debate, in every petition she answers, and in every parliamentary question that she responds to, the answer is, “We are keeping it under review.” What will it take for the British Government to shift from “keeping it under review” to “We have had enough. We will sanction these Chinese individuals, just as the US and other countries have done—and we had a particular duty to do that long before now”?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I absolutely hear my hon. Friend’s point, but I will continue to reiterate that line, for very good reason. I hope that we can, as we have many times before, discuss in the Lobby the practical reasons for that. We will continue to do that, and nothing is off the table.

Jimmy Lai’s name has been raised many times today. That extraordinary prominent publisher and journalist, an incredibly brave man, is on trial accused of foreign collusion and sedition under the national security law, which we have repeatedly called to be repealed. Mr Lai has been targeted in a clear attempt to stop him peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression and association. He is a British national, and the UK Government stand alongside him at this difficult time. I know that colleagues are frustrated by the Chinese refusal to accept Jimmy’s British nationality due to China’s own nationality legislation; it is not alone in that. As my hon. Friend has said, that does not stop my officials continuing to demand consular rights for Jimmy in prison. The Foreign Secretary has called on the Hong Kong authorities to end the prosecution, and to release Mr Lai. We will continue to press for that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

I would never let a minute go to waste, Mr Twigg. I thank everybody for taking part in the debate. There has been a great degree of cross-party consensus, because we all recognise the situation as an international outrage. All I can say is that a regime that has no time for the judgment or endorsement that democratic processes bring, for the scrutiny that a free press provides, or for the rigour that adherence to the rule of international law instils, is not a strong regime. It is weak, insecure, illegitimate and in denial. That is the case of the Chinese Government. We must not be in denial in this House, and this Government must not be, either. We should follow the example of the United States and others, and work with the international community to not just call out China, but convince it that there can and will be consequences if it continues this affront to liberty and freedom in Hong Kong, in the rest of China, and beyond.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

Trial of Jimmy Lai

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I will not reiterate my previous answer on the subject of consular access and the challenges that we face in being able to support Jimmy Lai in that way. I reiterate the hon. Member’s point that many colleagues across the House have been ardent champions and supporters of Jimmy Lai, and indeed of his family as they seek to ensure that his case is understood across the world. We will continue to call for Jimmy Lai’s release. The national security law needs to be repealed. Those are messages that we will continue to highlight with the authorities at every possible opportunity.

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

Can I thank you personally, Mr Speaker, for granting today’s urgent question? The pantomime trial of Jimmy Lai is just the tip of a huge iceberg of the Chinese Communist party’s industrial-scale abuse of human rights and indifference to the international rule of law. Today, Parliaments around the world are expressing their solidarity with Jimmy Lai and the oppressed, freedom-loving people of Hong Kong, but there must be consequences. It is no good just monitoring human rights sanctions across the globe; my right hon. Friend has had years to name some of the legal and other officials of the Chinese Government who are undermining and abusing human rights as we speak. When will we see action, and what is she doing to address the concerns about the continual erosion of the judicial process in Hong Kong, and the involvement there of British judges? We need action, not constant warm words.

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

We continue to use sanctions tools across the piece at every opportunity where the evidence comes to us and we can use it, bearing in mind that, as we always say—I am sorry that it is frustrating for colleagues—we will never discuss potential future sanctions designations, because it could reduce their impact. We will always listen to and look closely at the evidence brought to us, and indeed at the work that our teams across the world do, to try to bring to bear our sanctions regimes against the human rights violations that we are seeing.

British Nationals Detained Overseas

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your stewardship, Ms Ali. Others wish to speak so I will try to keep my comments brief.

I congratulate the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) on securing this vital debate. We should hold such debates regularly because there is so much to be done in this policy area. British citizens carry British passports, and those British passports have a clear statement at the front that none should let or hinder those who hold that passport, yet too often we find ourselves apologising and running around that major statement at the front of the passport.

I want to focus carefully on the case of Jimmy Lai. I had the privilege of meeting the international team of lawyers who are attempting to defend him, even though they have now, appallingly, been barred from Hong Kong by the Chinese authorities, such is their approval. Nevertheless, I congratulate his team on the huge efforts they are making around the world to draw attention to the plight of a man whose only crime is to cry freedom for all those he lives with.

The point about Jimmy Lai’s case is the reality of the change in Hong Kong. The Chinese authorities have trashed the Sino-British agreement that protected people’s rights in Hong Kong as a special case, once it was all agreed. That agreement is an international treaty. The problem we have is that the authorities can now proceed against people such as Mr Lai for sedition and other appalling charges. He has already been forced to lose his company, and the assets of Apple Daily have been seized. It is unprecedented and could not happen here in the United Kingdom.

Here is the point: Hong Kong is still meant to be a common-law area, but it cannot be a common-law area if people can have their assets seized on charges that have not yet gone through the courts. It is a peculiarity that we go on pretending, as do some of our justices who serve out there. It is no longer really a common-law jurisdiction because it has the national security law over it. People such as Jimmy Lai will now suffer under the national security law without any redress or protection, as would normally be the case here in the United Kingdom, for example, where English common law protects our normal and natural rights. Those rights have been completely decimated in Hong Kong.

The interesting part is that Jimmy Lai has been prosecuted in four separate sets of criminal proceedings arising from his peaceful participation in the high-profile pro-democracy protests in 2019 and 2020, which were organised by civil liberties groups. His crime, therefore, is to have attended the protests; that alone, apparently, is the key. The thing is that he has already been prosecuted and found guilty. One of the charges against him was eventually dismissed on appeal—others were upheld—but he had already served his sentence when that happened. He now faces even more serious charges. He has faced spurious prosecution on charges of fraud, which is why his equipment was seized. He was convicted in October 2022, and in December 2022 he was sentenced to five years and nine months’ imprisonment.

The conviction has meant that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) said, Jimmy Lai has spent some 1,000 days incarcerated on trumped-up charges. But worse is to come. Those charges were all precursors, giving the authorities time to build a case that, under the national security law, will put him inside for a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of life.

The point that I want to make about Jimmy Lai, which is very important, is that he could have fled Hong Kong. He had made enough money to leave Hong Kong and go elsewhere, and complain about the Hong Kong authorities and the Chinese authorities from outside. But he did not. He chose to stay in Hong Kong, because he knew that if he fled then a lot of the hope about what they might eventually be able to achieve would also go. He is a beacon of freedom, and freedom of speech, in a way that no other that I know of globally is at present. I do not decry others; I simply say that he is remarkable.

Jimmy Lai’s choice to stay put in Hong Kong came with the full knowledge that he would not enjoy freedom for long. That has been realised, with these trumped-up charges, and now he faces a full prosecution—it has been delayed, but is likely to happen towards the end of this year, maybe in October—under the national security law.

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

My right hon. Friend, I and indeed you, Ms Ali, attended a conference in Prague over the weekend that was full of parliamentarians from around the world, many of whom, including my right hon. Friend and I, have been sanctioned by the Chinese authorities. The whole subject of Jimmy Lai was very much the focus of that conference.

However, does my right hon. Friend agree that the issue of Jimmy Lai is not just about Jimmy Lai himself but about what this country stands for? In the case of Jimmy Lai, the Chinese Communist party has enacted two criminal acts, one of which is breaking the Anglo-Sino agreement over Hong Kong, an international treaty to which we are a signatory. As a result of its trashing of that treaty, all the protections under the rule of law that might have applied have been swept away. That is why Jimmy Lai, one of the most successful businessmen and whose company was the largest quoted on the Hong Kong stock exchange, is now facing this prosecution.

Jimmy Lai is a British citizen—there is no doubt about that—and therefore he is entitled to the full force of the British Government’s protection. Why has that not been shown and why have there been no consequences, despite the warm words from the Foreign Secretary and others, for the fact that my right hon. Friend and I, along with five other parliamentarians, remain sanctioned and Jimmy Lai continues to be denied the basic justice that we take for granted in this country?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I am very grateful that my hon. Friend intervened, because I agree, of course, with everything he said. He and I are sanctioned; in our case, it is for raising the genocide in Xinjiang, which is another case altogether.

I agree with my hon. Friend about Jimmy Lai. I will come back to Jimmy Lai, but I want first to say something more widely about the many British citizens who languish abroad. I am afraid that we too often find reasons and excuses to believe that behind the scenes we can somehow do something that will help them without raising the fact that they are British citizens and therefore, under international law, they require full consular access and rights. I simply say that that is a mindset that we need to get out of. We need to say: “If you are a British passport holder—and, most importantly, a British citizen—then you have the protection of this United Kingdom, which is supposed to believe in human rights and freedom.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

We work closely with our allies and friends and we are very proud, as the UK, to have made available British national overseas visas. So far, I think, 166,000 have taken up the opportunity to be here in the UK.

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

The Chinese communist Government have broken British laws in their threats against people legitimately given safety in the United Kingdom. If my right hon. Friend and other Ministers have spoken to their counterparts, they will know that they have brought in sanctions against officials in Hong Kong and s freezing of assets. What have we done, and if, as I suspect, we have not done anything, why not?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

As I say, the Foreign Secretary asked a senior official to call in the Chinese ambassador last week, which he did, highlighting that the issuing of arrest warrants and bounties for eight individuals living overseas was unacceptable. We obviously continue to express our ongoing opposition to the imposition of the national security law, and as my hon. Friend knows, we continue to consider the use of diplomatic tools, including sanctions where appropriate. I cannot discuss what we may do in future.

Hong Kong Update

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

We work very closely with our international partners on all those matters, including on sanctions, through international forums where we can work together to use the tools that are available for us to do that. We will be working with them on how Interpol may be able to assist. We absolutely condemn the bounties. There is no authority for any of the bounties on citizens or anyone in the UK. They have no validity and we absolutely—I will say it again—condemn them. We ask that they be removed, that all those who have had these targets put on them can understand that that is not the case, and that the intimidation and harassment of their friends and family stop immediately. As I say, the Foreign Secretary has asked a senior official to call in the Chinese ambassador. We will, I hope, be able to provide an update to the House next week during oral questions.

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

Another Thursday, another opportunity to condemn China missed by the Government. I am afraid that the Minister has just parroted the words of the Foreign Secretary when he said:

“We will not tolerate any attempts by China to intimidate and silence individuals in the UK”.

Since when China’s Foreign Ministry has accused the UK of “harbouring criminals”, since when the Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee has said that the democracy activists they want to arrest should be treated like “rats in the street”, and since when, two days ago, the family of Nathan Law were arrested and intimidated, on top of everything else.

When I and six parliamentary colleagues were sanctioned in this House just for speaking in defence of Uyghurs and Tibetans, we had our assets in China frozen—if they could find them. Chinese Government officials have said and done so much worse, so why has not one of them in Hong Kong been sanctioned? Why has none of them in Hong Kong had their assets frozen? Why have we not suspended the remaining extradition treaties with Hong Kong, let alone called in the ambassador to tell him face to face that this is completely unacceptable and there will be implications? When this morning the Intelligence and Security Committee concluded that the UK has no strategy to tackle the threat posed by Beijing, it was right, wasn’t it?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I have not had a chance to read the ISC’s report, which I understand has come out this morning, but I will do so and, with officials, assess the statements made. My hon. Friend is a long-standing and incredibly brave advocate for those who find themselves under duress in China, and his campaigning for the Uyghurs is commendable.

Both the Foreign Secretary and I raise at every meeting we have the matter of MPs in this House who are sanctioned by the Chinese Government, and we ask that those sanctions be lifted. It is an unacceptable situation. The wider challenge around the national security law, which we continue to call to be lifted, is simply that it highlights the unacceptability of the Hong Kong authorities’ decision to target leading pro-democracy figures who are here under the safety that the UK provides them with. We continue to make those objections absolutely clear. Indeed, diplomats—our team from the consulate general in Hong Kong—attend NSL47 court proceedings and will continue to do so, despite the limitations on their ability to do that.

Hong Kong Pro-democracy Activists

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The whole House clearly agrees that any attempt by any foreign power to intimidate, harass or indeed harm individuals or our communities in the UK will not be tolerated. This is an insidious threat to our democracy and to those fundamental human rights that the UK always stands up for across the world.

As I said, Home Office officials work closely with the FCDO and other Departments to ensure that the UK is and continues to be a safe and welcoming place for those who choose to settle here. As I said in my statement, the BNO route is now available to up to 3 million, and so far about 160,000—those numbers might not be entirely correct—have taken up the opportunity. The door is very much open. I will also highlight that the Security Minister directed the defending democracy taskforce to review the UK’s approach to transnational repression to ensure that we have the most robust and joined-up response both across Government and with law enforcement, should—sadly—we need to make use of that.

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

Extending bounties and arrest warrants to people living in this country who have escaped Hong Kong is a particularly chilling extension of the Chinese Communist party’s tentacles across sovereign borders. Frankly, tough words need to be followed by tough actions. Just saying that we will not tolerate this—or we will not tolerate this again—is no deterrent.

Will my right hon. Friend now admit that her sitting down with Liu Jianchao, the head of the Chinese Government’s international liaison department—the chief dissident snatcher who had a role in issuing the warrants—and being photographed sitting next to him smiling, along with five other hon. Members of this House, was a bad idea? It sends out entirely the wrong message to the Chinese Government, which is why they think they can get away with it. When will see real sanctions, the calling back of judges and some real implications for what China is doing, rather than tough words that mean nothing?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

As the Foreign Secretary set out in his recent speech on China, we consider it important to engage with our Chinese counterparts, where appropriate, to protect UK interests and to build those relationships. I therefore was comfortable sitting down with Liu Jianchao for a political dialogue when he visited at the invitation of the Great Britain-China Centre, because I believe it is important to have such conversations. In every diplomatic relationship, being frank is possible only if the parties are in the room together. Colleagues will be aware that I was extremely frank with the gentleman in question. He was able to hear directly from an FCDO Minister our many concerns about sanctioned MPs and about Hong Kong. The issues we are discussing today and others were raised. We consider that an important way to maintain the conversation.

On this latest, very worrying situation on bounties, most importantly we want to ensure the safety, security and freedom of expression of those who choose to be here, so that they are able to express their views clearly on these matters. As colleagues know, when the national security law was brought in, we declared that it was a breach of the Sino-British joint declaration. We continue to raise those issues to see whether they can be resolved, but we do not feel confident at the moment.

Hong Kong National Security Law Anniversary

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2023 Westminster Hall

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

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on bringing yet another debate on Chinese human rights abuse to this House. I think the accusations that he has quite rightly made are an underestimate: by my reckoning, the US Government have in fact sanctioned some 11 people—former Chief Executive Carrie Lam, Chief Executive John Lee and nine other Hong Kong officials—for their role in the crackdowns in the city. The Foreign Office has very clearly said that the security law is a clear breach of the joint declaration. At the last count, I think at least 18 journalists have been arrested, numerous free speech media organisations have been closed down, several opposition parties have been driven out of operation and democratically elected places have been reduced to no more than 20% in forthcoming elections. I am sure my right hon. Friend will get on to this, but what have the UK Government actually done to show the Chinese that that oppressive activity has consequences? Nobody has been sanctioned, but what other sanctions have been brought to bear? What are the consequences of what the Chinese are doing?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I stand corrected. My hon. Friend is quite right: it is 11, which makes it even worse. Foremost among them is the Catholic entrepreneur and—most importantly—journalist Jimmy Lai, who languishes in prison on a trumped-up charge. I will come back to that point, because I have further questions to ask the UK Government, but I hope that the Minister has taken note of my hon. Friend’s comments about the actions of the United States. Our words about the transgressions have remained words; they have not given rise to actions that I would have expected from the UK Government. I am sorry to say that. They are a Government I support, but a Government who at the moment I have to say are in deficit in this area. I want to point out a few more areas where I find our Government in deficit.

What assessment have the Government made of all those figures we have been chucking out, as young political prisoners, three quarters of whom are aged 30 or under, bear the brunt of this oppressive regime? It is deeply troubling that minors face the longest sentences of all, averaging something like 27 months, further exacerbating their plight. What also bothers me is that the Government, having not gone to Hong Kong officially, suddenly sent a Government Minister there a few weeks ago. As I understand it, now that his visits and meetings have been published, Lord Johnson met no democracy campaigners, said nothing officially or publicly about the Sino-British agreement, said nothing at all about the breach of human rights, said nothing at all about those sanctioned, and, to my knowledge, said nothing at all about the plight of the British citizen Jimmy Lai.

I want to stay on that point because, of all the things the Minister could have said, he could have said something about the bad behaviour with regard to a British passport holder and citizen. I want to say it again: Jimmy Lai is a British passport holder and citizen. As much as every one of us sitting in this room today, he has rights. At the front of the passport, it states “without let or hindrance”. What is the worth of the passport that I and everybody else in this room carry, if my Government will not call him a British citizen with rights under international law for consular access? America refers to him as a British citizen and passport holder. The European Union refers to him as a British citizen and passport holder. What country does not refer to him as a British citizen and passport holder publicly? Sadly, that would be my Government—our Government. For some reason, the British Government take it upon themselves to know, beyond any other family member or Jimmy Lai himself, what is good for him. What is good for him is what he wants.

Jimmy Lai did not flee Hong Kong after the trashing of the Sino-British agreement. Why? Because he is a brave man who believed that as long as he stayed, he could be the guarantor of some of the rights that might disappear. He wanted to be the icon who believed in democracy and human rights, so that those who were fearful and fleeing, and worried for their lives and the lives of their family, would look to him and see a brave man standing on the hill saying, “I’m not going anywhere. This is my home.”

A British citizen, a brave man, now languishes in prison on a trumped-up charge that has nothing to do with reality. He faces a second court case later this year, where he will almost certainly be charged under the new security laws for sedition. Jimmy Lai knows, and his family know, that it is unlikely he will ever see the light of day outside that prison. He knew that from the very word go; he made his choices on the basis that he knew that from the very word go. He did not flee.

Surely Jimmy Lai wants us to say that he is a proud British citizen and passport holder. He is not a dual national, by the way. I wish the British Government would stop referring to him as a dual national: it plays into the Chinese Government’s hands, because they declare that they do not recognise dual nationals. He is not a dual national; he is a British passport holder. I want that to be very clear. His family, who I have spoken to and who had to flee to Taiwan, say he wants to be pronounced a British citizen and passport holder. All I ask is that at the end of the debate my hon. Friend the Minister gets up and says, “He is a British citizen and passport holder, and we intend to pursue the Chinese Government publicly for consular rights. He is a political prisoner, and there is no question beyond that.”

I congratulate and applaud my Government on the generous BNO scheme and on extending it. To give credit where credit is due, the Government have done well on that. The trouble is that after everything that has been going on and the failure to recognise even a British passport holder, many BNO passport holders in the UK are now fearful about their own status. We know that many of them have been hunted down in the UK by those terrible Chinese police stations, which are quite illegal but have existed in the UK for an unnecessarily long time. We know that they have been threatened and bullied about their status. They worry about their protections under a BNO scheme, which are far fewer than those of having a British passport and being a British citizen. I would like the Government to consider that our failure to act in that way for Jimmy Lai has consequences for those we would wish to protect in a wider scheme. One need only talk to them to understand their concerns. We need to make those changes and announcements.

On the basis of what my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said, when will the UK Government put Hong Kong officials, who were responsible in the first place for many of those human rights abuses, under notice that they will be sanctioned? They should have been sanctioned by now. Is there a chance that the British Government are reviewing it? I know what the British Government and the Minister will say: “We never discuss sanctions.” I wish he would say at least that he will take note of what we have said.

For Hongkongers facing the plight of having to risk entering the Chinese consulate for the renewal of their Hong Kong passports, this policy places them in a vulnerable position. They are worried. What alternative procedures will the Government pursue to give those people a greater sense of certainty, such as by providing other things like travel documents or establishing a successful and secure passport renewal process that does not necessitate entering the grounds of a Chinese consulate? I remind everybody that the last person I knew of who entered a Chinese consulate’s grounds was dragged there by the consul general, was beaten up and had his hair torn out. I met him afterwards, and he was traumatised. The Chinese Government did not do anything, and the British Government talked about the law, but he quietly disappeared later on and no apology was made. It was a terrible act. I understand why BNO passport holders here are fearful of what will happen to them if they enter the consulate. The big concern and fear is about whether they will come out again. Will the Government look for other ways for them to establish their legitimacy, other than being forced into this damaging process?

The visit of Liu Jianchao last week also sent a signal to many people who are here under the BNO scheme. It is deeply regrettable that the Government chose, for some reason, to host him. This is a man deeply involved in China’s controversial fox hunt operations, which hunt down Chinese dissidents around the world and seek to get them back to China using techniques that include threatening their families, televising that threat, and eventual torture and arrest on re-arrival. It is an example of China’s disregard for international norms and human rights that it behaves in that way so publicly. By welcoming this individual—there is a photograph of a Minister sitting next to him; given the abuse of international norms and human rights, I am astonished that we would allow a Government Minister to meet him and sit with him—are we not sending a chilling message to everybody else that we place that relationship on a higher plane than people’s human rights and liberties?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

These are abuses of human rights and democracy. The hon. Gentleman is right: this is an appalling return to a time we thought had long passed. We now respect people’s human rights, but that is not the case in China, and it is now not the case in Hong Kong. The worst part about the situation in Hong Kong, which he is right to raise, is that we were one of the guarantors, but we seem to be shuffling away from that guarantee. Where other countries have acted on the abuse, we seem to be stepping back. I am concerned about that. I would love to know more about it from the Minister.

[Tim Loughton]

Going back to the visit by Liu Jianchao last week, a photograph was publicly promoted—through Government circles as well—with lots of smiling Chinese officials. I counted at least five parliamentary colleagues in that photo, including a senior Government Minister, sitting alongside a notorious senior Chinese Government official responsible for snatch-and-grab, effectively illegal, rendition. Given that my right hon. Friend and I and five other parliamentarians have been sanctioned by China, and that the Chinese ambassador and other Chinese Government officials are, quite rightly, banned from coming to this place as a result of the good work of the Speaker, does my right hon. Friend not think that no parliamentary colleagues should be seen sitting down with Chinese officials of this calibre and reputation? They should not be doing it, should they?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend knows very well that I agree completely with him. I was shocked to see that picture. I wrote to the Prime Minister on the Sunday, shortly before Liu Jianchao was due to come over. I also wrote to the Speaker, who was in agreement that the meeting would clearly not take place in the House of Commons or Parliament generally. When I wrote to the Prime Minister, I was told I would get a reply at some point—although the man is gone now, so the reply will come after the event, which is sad, but there we go.

The point is that I did not know at that stage that Liu Jianchao was going to meet any officials; I was told that he was not and that he was going to meet MPs. I then saw the picture the hon. Gentleman referred to, in which a Government Minister is sitting front and centre next to this man, whose reputation is so utterly appalling that it beggars belief that anybody would want to sit next to him, but everyone in that picture is grinning and happy. That our colleagues should then attend is another thing, and I simply say that there should be some solidarity in this place. If people are sanctioned for standing up for their beliefs, we do not want to undermine that by sitting next to these characters. I would therefore like to know what assessment the Government made before the meeting with Liu Jianchao.

After all, this place should be a beacon of freedom. I have the highest respect for the procedures, processes and nature of Government—I served in Government myself for some years—and I understand the difficulties, but there is a particular reason why this individual should not have been allowed to sit next to a Government Minister. When the deputy governor of Xinjiang was going to come over here, I and others went out to the protests with the Uyghurs, because he was part of the design of the terrible system that is now, essentially, genocide against them.

We campaigned outside the Foreign Office, which eventually said that it would not allow an official to see him, although one had been going to. I was happy that it came to its senses and said no. By the way, when people say that British foreign policy cannot persuade anybody any more, it is not true, because every other European country that was going to see him said no as a result. So we have some sway after all; we have some locus in this. I therefore want to ask the Minister what thought was given to this before this man arrived here.

I spoke earlier about Lord Johnson’s visit, and I was astonished to find that the problems or the plight of the people we have spoken about today, who have been attacked, arrested and trashed, were not raised particularly—it was all meetings with business. I can understand it if he meets with business, but meeting with business in Hong Kong is not the same as meeting with business in the United States or the UK, where people have freedom of expression and are covered by human rights and a workable law. That is not the case in Hong Kong, and we cannot detach ourselves from what is going on politically in Hong Kong if we choose to go to Hong Kong to make business arrangements.

As I say, the American Government have already warned their businesses that common law does not protect them in Hong Kong in the way that it would have done under the Sino-British agreement. That is a really important point. English common law is the finest legal system in the world, and it is being adopted by countries all over the world, particularly for business deals. It is straightforward and much easier to operate, and it runs under a system that has been tested through time, and many people welcome that. However, the freedoms and rights in it disappear when they clash with the new law that exists in Hong Kong. That problem did not go away, and things like countering foreign sanctions, and businesses getting trashed as a result of these new laws, do not seem to have been raised either.

However, I want to return to Jimmy Lai. Of all the things I have spoken about today, this man should be in our thoughts. He is a brave democrat and a decent man. He is a journalist. He speaks truth unto power. He was fearless in the way that, when he had to, he attacked the Legislative Council and the decisions it made. He was constant and convinced in the role that he played.

I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that we should take decisive action to uphold the promise of protecting our citizens. I want to know what steps the Government intend to take, not only on many of those who are languishing in jail but, importantly, on Jimmy Lai, because he is iconic. Are we going to say to the Chinese Government, “Enough is enough. There are consequences to your actions. We intend now to tell the world that this man is a British citizen and a British passport holder. We have responsibilities for him, and we intend to claim those under international law. We are not prepared any longer to do things quietly behind the scenes. If you choose to go on down this road, we will sanction all those responsible for the introduction of the new laws and the crackdown, as America has already done”? We should be telling China that that is where we are going. I know that we worry about losing business with China, but sometimes the price of business can be too high, and I think that that is the case here.

All that I want to know is that we recognise a British citizen, we recognise a British passport holder and we treat them the same, no matter where they live or where they are. That is the point of the passport. I carry my passport with pride, but I doubt its provenance now, as a result of our attitude and the attitude of those at the Foreign Office to Jimmy Lai. I ask them simply to examine their conscience and to ask themselves whether, if they had been incarcerated by a foreign Government that had broken an international agreement, they would not want the Government and the Foreign Office to stand up for them in the boldest and bravest ways, as they should?

I have two last points, and I will be brief. I understand that there is a lot of movement at the moment on the National Security Bill, which is providing the Government with some tools—for example, the enhanced tier of the foreign influence register scheme. However, we do not know yet whether China will be included in that enhanced tier. If my hon. Friend the Minister cannot respond to that point now, I ask him to take away the fact that we here in Westminster Hall, and more widely in the House, want China moved into that tier, because it poses a direct and constant threat.

The second thing, which I will finish on, is that an idea may be brewing in the Government that they want to do an energy trade deal with China. If that is the case, they need to rethink. The idea of rewarding China for its bad behaviour and becoming more dependent on an autocratic regime smacks of failed policy. I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to tell me at the end of the debate that there is no such discussion and that no such trade arrangement will be attempted.

In conclusion, this is a sad anniversary. These people, who have been arrested and incarcerated for the freedoms that we take for granted in the United Kingdom, need to be supported. Overall, the best thing we can do to show the Chinese Government that we shall not tolerate this is to say that Jimmy Lai is a British citizen—a British passport holder—and that we demand the rights that come with British citizenship, including consular access. I ask nothing more of my British Government than that they support a British passport holder.

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

I was not intending to speak in this debate, but my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and fellow sanctionee has spurred me on to fill the short gap that we might have in this debate. There is rarely a debate on China in this place that I am not chafing at the bit to participate in. I agree with everything that my right hon. Friends have said and I will not repeat it. Certainly the generosity and necessity of the BNO scheme has shown its worth. I fear that many more than the 160,000 former residents of Hong Kong here already will swell those numbers.

The rule of law, justice, free speech and anything resembling freedom were snuffed out over more than 60 years in Tibet. They have been snuffed out in recent years in Xinjiang and are now being aggressively snuffed out in Hong Kong. The rule of law, as any of us would recognise it, does not exist in China. I want to give two examples. We had a meeting of the Conservative human rights commission at the beginning of this week and heard testimony from two very brave men who have been the victims and fallen foul of—I will not call it the Chinese justice system, because there is no justice—the Chinese legal system.

One of them, Peter Humphrey, is a 67-year-old British citizen from Surrey who had 48 years of experience in China. He did a lot of work in China and was working for GlaxoSmithKline when in July 2013 he and his wife were arrested and imprisoned on charges of illegal information gathering after conducting an investigation for GSK. They spent two years in Chinese prisons during which time Peter developed advanced prostate cancer because medical treatment was deliberately withheld in a bid to coerce a false confession. He was the first prominent member of the foreign business community in China to be imprisoned by the Xi Jinping regime and the case attracted extensive media coverage. He was also the first foreigner to be paraded in a cage on Chinese television in a notorious broadcast of a false and forced TV confession.

In 2019 there was the case of the Tesco Christmas cards, which gained a lot of attention when a six-year-old girl from Tooting opened a box of Christmas cards bought in Tesco to find that one of them had already been filled out. The cards were made in China. On the front the card featured a kitten in a Santa hat. However, inside one of the cards was this message:

“We are foreign prisoners in Shanghai Qingpu prison China. Forced to work against our will. Please help us and notify human rights organization. Use the link to contact Mr Peter Humphrey.”

So Peter was specifically mentioned in that note. It was from a prisoner in the gulag—one of many millions who were being forced into labour and used by companies in China to sell their goods to an unsuspecting Tesco, which, to give it its due, ceased business with the company that provided the goods. The trouble is that it is almost impossible to source where many of these things come from. We know how so many things are made in China and disguised in various component parts.

The second person who we heard testimony from earlier this week was a 42-year-old Romanian citizen, Marius Balo. Many of the people in the room were in tears at the testimonies that the men gave about their experiences at the hands of the Chinese Government. In 2014, Marius was wrongfully arrested, along with all the staff of the Chinese company for which he worked as a part-time employee. The company was accused of contract fraud, which Marius had known absolutely nothing about. It was entirely trumped up. He spent the next two years in a 12 square-metre cage with no way to contact anyone in the outside world, and a further six years in the same Shanghai prison as Peter Humphrey.

This is going on all the time. Those two men have been exceedingly brave in not hiding their experiences, but speaking up. They have done so on behalf of the many thousands of people in similar situations in Chinese jails and in the Chinese legal system. We owe them a debt of gratitude as they continue to speak up. It is estimated that there are something like 5 million prisoners in Chinese jails, of whom over 5,000 are estimated to be overseas nationals. We do not know how many of them are British, and we do not know what support they are getting from British consular missions. Perhaps the Minister could tell us how many British nationals, in addition to Jimmy Lai, are in Chinese prisons at the moment and explain what support they are receiving.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend might be so bold as to ask the Minister how many have been in prison for longer than a year and are still awaiting trial. Many of these people have not even had the right to a trial.

[Tim Loughton]

That is entirely the point. It is not just a question of their having dodgy justice, but a question of their having to wait years and years, just like the 45 people who are still going through what is likely to be a six-month trial. They were in jail, restricted of their liberty, for many months before that.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green mentioned earlier, more than 100 people have been remanded in custody for an average of nearly two and a half years. Under trumped up charges, they are incarcerated in pretty grim conditions before they even have a chance to argue their case, if indeed they are given that chance. Often the defendants are not even allowed in court to argue their case. The jury system does not exist in many cases, and the verdict is predetermined. Something like 99.9% of all those prosecutions result in a conviction, and 99.9% of appeals against those convictions are turned down.

As I said, justice does not exist in Hong Kong and the whole of China. There have to be consequences when that specifically undermines British interests and when the British agreement has been, in the Foreign Office’s own words, flouted and breached. Other nations seem to be taking that breach more seriously than one of the co-signatories of that agreement, which has a duty of care to the many millions of citizens still in Hong Kong, let alone the increasing number escaping its borders.

There is no rule of law, and the cases that I cited predate the national security law, since when things have got much worse. We know that the Chinese do nothing when faced with just a war of words. The only time the Chinese take notice is when those allegations have consequences and Governments follow through on those consequences. Other nations, particularly the Americans, have followed through with legislation that has had direct consequences for the ability to trade, for people’s ability to travel, for investment and so on, and it is bizarre and completely unacceptable that we have not followed the Americans’ lead on even a fraction of those.

[Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is giving an excellent speech. I think what he is reaching for and what would be helpful to know from the Government is what we, the Foreign Office or the UK are doing to take action. He has mentioned sanctions. When people are effectively taken as pawns or hostages, the other thing we can and should do—in relation to Beijing, but also Iran, Russia and many other countries—is raise that under the new arbitrary detention mechanism alliance that we pioneered with Canada. Does my hon. Friend agree that sanctions and words alone are not enough, and that action in international fora that can embarrass those who take hostages is imperative?

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[Tim Loughton]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. That is just one of many devices available to the United Kingdom Government. For some reason, they have chosen to use none of them.

Let me give the Minister a series of questions; I hope that he has plenty of time to answer them and many others that have arisen. Do the Government agree with the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights that the national security law

“has de facto abolished the independence of the judiciary of Hong Kong SAR”?

What steps will the Government take to communicate their discontent with China’s ongoing breaching of the internationally binding Sino-British joint declaration? It should not just be, “You are a bit naughty. We signed this agreement, and you do not seem to have stuck to it—would you mind awfully doing something about it?” It must not be that sort of “Dad’s Army” sergeant approach to things: “Would you mind awfully?” There have to be consequences. What are the Government doing about it? If the Chinese say nothing, what will we then do in response?

I have some more questions. What assessment have the Government made about reports that Hong Kong’s status as a financial centre is being used to bypass western sanctions on Russia? What assessment have the Government made of UK strategic assets currently held by the Hong Kong Government? What plans do the UK Government have to review the status of Hong Kong’s economic and trade offices in the UK following the enactment of the national security law and the incident at the Chinese consulate in Manchester, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green mentioned? Extraordinarily, the consul general not only admitted to having beaten up somebody who was protesting outside—there was no hiding it—but, when interviewed on television, said, “Well, it’s my job.” He was bang to rights. What further evidence was needed? It was on film—in his own words. He had broken the law and assaulted somebody who was freely at liberty in the United Kingdom. The Government did nothing until he was spirited away by the Chinese Government, and then it was too late.

I have three other questions. What actions are the Government taking to protect Hongkongers now in the UK who face harassment, intimidation and threats from agents of the Chinese Communist party after the incident in Manchester? Lots of people are rather scared that they are going to have a knock on their door. What steps are the Government taking to expand their Chinese expertise in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, including through the recruitment of Cantonese and Mandarin speakers?

Finally, what support are the Government offering to UK nationals who have been targeted by the national security law? I declare an interest, because those nationals include the seven parliamentarians who have been sanctioned under the national security law, the consequences of which, other than the bans on travel and investment, we do not know. We have been offered no protection or added support by the Government, and yet the Government continue to be willing to meet representatives of that regime and give them publicity, as if we were dealing with any other normal democratic nation that respects the rule of law. China does not. It does not in Hong Kong. This law is appalling. We do not just need to say so; we need to make it clear to the Chinese that there are consequences from going through with it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 13th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

The UK’s position on settlements is of long standing. We continue to call on the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority to work towards a sustainable two-state solution. We will always endeavour to make that a reality. That remains the foundation stone of the UK’s foreign policy in the region.

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

It is now six months since the illegal blockade of the Lachin corridor—the vital lifeline between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. Since then, the Azerbaijan President has made increasingly bellicose threats towards Armenian people. Can the Under-Secretary of State, who recently returned from Armenia, update us on what we are doing to bring pressure to end that humanitarian disaster?

[Leo Docherty]

We support the Euro-Atlantic efforts to bring the two sides together. We have urged our interlocutors in both Armenia and Azerbaijan to get back around the table. I look forward to updating my hon. Friend in person.

Relations with China: Xi Jinping Presidency

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

I do, and with some annoyance, anger and compassion for the residents of Hong Kong because they are being denied the freedom they once had. The UK Government have obviously stepped in and offered some passage for many Hong Kongers to come here to live. That is good news, but would it not be better if they were able to stay in their own country and exercise the freedom they once had?

We also have the continuing repression in Tibet. It was a salient reminder, when I did my research before this debate, when I found out that the suppression in Tibet has been going on since 1950. That is five years before I was born, so Tibetans’ freedoms have been denied and restricted for a long, long time. I understand that the inauguration of a new Dalai Lama will be at the behest of the Chinese Communist party. A religious group cannot appoint its own leader in Tibet, but only because the Chinese Communist party will not let them. Again, that is another example of what is going on inside China, and of China’s influence and control.

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

I am hoping to speak in the debate, so I will not intervene much. Just to be clear, whatever the Chinese Communist party Government think, the next Dalai Lama will be the responsibility of the people of Tibet and those entrusted by the current Dalai Lama to produce his successor. It will not be a result of what the Chinese Communist party allow or do not allow.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The information I have suggested that the Chinese Communist party was going to try to use its influence to ensure that any choice would be the choice of the Chinese Communist party, but if, as the hon. Gentleman said, there is some control over that, that would be one of the good things that could come out of this.

The issue of forced organ transplantation from members of the Falun Gong has been in my heart in this House for some 10 years now. It is being done on a commercial scale, and people have lost their lives. We must never forget the impact of that on the Falun Gong.

There is also the persecution of Christians. Churches have been destroyed, with secret police sitting in church services, taking notes of those who are there, and recording car numbers and which houses people return to. We have also had the rise of cyber-surveillance in China, which is another indication of those being imprisoned, beaten and injured all because they happen to have a different religious opinion. Today, we had some good news: the Government indicated that they would suspend their agreement with TikTok. That is good news when it comes to security issues, and we must welcome it.

In my time as an MP, I have seen the UK move from the “golden era” espoused by David Cameron and George Osborne to the confusion and lack of cohesion on China under this Government. In each case, the policies were driven by economics. Economics is of course relevant, but our policies must encompass other important factors such as our human rights obligations, and take into account our moral compass and what we believe. There is a real fear that focusing solely on money would mean that the UK’s fundamental beliefs in human rights and the rule of law are subjugated for the purpose of trade deals. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) referred to that; it is one of the key issues, and I seek clarification and encouragement from the Minister on it. That would be great for China and other authoritarian states, but terrible for the UK’s standing in the world. I urge extreme caution and recommend change.

We are watching in real time the reduction of democratic states and the rise of authoritarian regimes. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, 23 countries out of 167 monitored in 2020 could be called democracies. Fifty were considered authoritarian, and the others attained some form of flawed democracy or hybrid system, more likely than not under the control of one person.

China and Russia are leading the global rise in authoritarian states. They are seeking to build their own alliances, disrupt democratic processes in other countries, interfere in elections, and create their own channels for communication and cyber-control away from the norms and standards expected by international treaties. They support each other at institutions such as the United Nations, where the evil axis gathers together to defend each other’s interests and provide financial and political support for one another. The unfortunate thing for us is that democracies seem incapable of working together to fight back against that in a single-minded, focused manner, so I have great concerns.

The Chinese Government have committed a series of ongoing human rights abuses against the Uyghurs since 2014. I and others, including the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), who is in the Chamber, have raised that issue. Abuse is also perpetrated against other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang province. This is the largest scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since world war two. It is of that size; it is almost impossible to take in the number.

The United States has declared China’s human rights abuses a genocide, as have legislators in several other countries, including Canada, the Netherlands, Lithuania and France. We have even done so in this House of Commons in a debate led by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green. The Parliaments of New Zealand, Belgium and the Czech Republic condemned the Chinese Government’s treatment of the Uyghurs as severe human rights abuses or crimes against humanity, which they truly are.

China continues to deny any wrongdoing and threatens politicians and even entire countries with retaliation simply for daring to raise and debate these issues. Diplomats are deployed to berate senior Government officials and speak at news stations to explain that everyone is wrong and at this is all just Sinophobia and anti-China rhetoric. No, it is not; it is much more than that.

Atrocities in Tibet have been going on since 1950—so much so that we barely react any more. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has spoken about Tibet for as long as I have been in this House, and long before that, I believe. He has highlighted it on many occasions. We cannot forget about it. We need to focus on what is happening there, which is hard to take in, with regularity and ferocity. Children are forced into re-education boarding schools as a way of eradicating their language and religion, with the hope that they will reject their own families and culture. Such policies have left a trail of family destruction and have cut cultural and historical memory.

China plans to choose the next Dalai Lama, but I am very pleased that the hon. Gentleman said that those of the Dalai Lama’s religion will make that choice. I hope that will be the case and that China does not influence it in any way. We wait to see what happens.

Hong Kong wants to be a peaceful and prosperous city, a thriving economic and social hub in Asia, and truly global in its influence, but it has been brought to its knees in just three years since the introduction of the national security law.

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

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who said most of what I was going to say but I will give it a go anyway. Let me start with my declaration of interests—they are not at all financial, otherwise there would be a problem—as somebody who has been sanctioned by China. That is something I am very proud to shout about at every opportunity. I also declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Tibet, an association I have had for many years, and before this place, as the hon. Gentleman said.

Another day, yet another debate on China’s abuses of human rights. Earlier in the Chamber, there was another announcement relating to China, on TikTok, which I will come on to in a minute. This debate is about relations with China under the dictatorship of President Xi over the last 10 years, so it is worth starting by looking at some of the words he has said on the record and then putting some meat on the bones of how that has actually worked out in practice.

In March 2013, Xi Jinping started his first five-year term as the President of China. More consequentially, in November 2012 he first assumed the two most powerful positions in China: general secretary of the Chinese Communist party and the chairman of the party’s central military commission. Changes in leadership positions in China’s one-party state are made every five years and normally follow a two-step process: the first occurring in the CCP and the second involving the Government. At the CCP’s 20th party congress in October 2022, Xi was appointed general secretary for a third five-year term and once again as chair of the party’s CMC, confirming his dominance over the party and the country at large. That third term appointment broke the recent precedent of the country’s leadership serving only two terms.

More recently, on 11 March, he secured a precedent-breaking third term as President of China, as well as chairman of the CMC, with nearly 3,000 members of the National People’s Congress voting unanimously in the Great Hall of the People. Funnily enough, no other candidates ran. Effectively, he is becoming a dictator for life, the likes of which we have not really seen since the fall of the iron curtain and some of those potentates under the control of the Soviet empire in eastern European states before they were able to win their liberty and return to Europe, freedom and democracy.

In his speech in March to the National People’s Congress, Xi Jinping said:

“Since its founding, the Communist Party of China has closely united and led the Chinese people of all ethnic groups in working hard for a century to put an end to China’s national humiliation.”

Note that he mentioned working with “all ethnic groups” across China; I think there are 57 different ethnic groups. That does not really apply if someone is a Uyghur, Tibetan, a Hongkonger or of Mongolian ancestry. It has not really worked out well for them. He said:

“the Chinese nation has achieved the great transformation from standing up and growing prosperous to becoming strong, and China’s national rejuvenation has become a historical inevitability.”

On military and defence, he went on to say:

“We need to better”—

a split infinitive, I apologise—

“co-ordinate development and security. We should comprehensively promote the modernisation of our national defence and our armed forces, and build the people’s military into a great wall of steel that can effectively safeguard our nation’s sovereignty, security and the interests of our development.”

On Taiwan, he said:

“Realising China’s complete reunification is a shared aspiration of all the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation, as well as the essence of national rejuvenation…resolutely oppose foreign interference and separatist activities aimed at ‘Taiwan independence’ and unswervingly promote progress towards national reunification.”

Those words should not come as a surprise. Two years earlier, in a speech—I am quoting selectively, but I think you will get the gist, Sir Edward—marking the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist party, he said:

“We will never allow anyone to bully, oppress or subjugate China…Anyone who dares try to do that will have their heads bashed bloody against the Great Wall of Steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people…Only socialism can save China, and only socialism with Chinese characteristics can develop China…No one should underestimate the Chinese people’s staunch determination, firm will, and strong ability to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity…The historical task of the complete reunification of the motherland must be fulfilled, and will definitely be fulfilled.”

I watched a programme last night about the Nazis in the 1930s, and so much of President Xi’s language there was redolent of what was heard in the 1930s under Hitler. It is a shame that Gary Lineker did not refer to that as well, because that is where the real dangers lie. It is chilling when one listens to the very words that the people running China put into the public domain. We should take them exceedingly seriously. For previous Governments to refer to “golden ages” of relationships between the United Kingdom, the west and China, under the same dictator who expressed those words, is a complete fantasy—and a dangerous fantasy at that. We need to wake up to that.

I worry greatly about the threat that China poses. It is a threat, whatever language the Government might like to use. Let us touch on the China 2049 policy, which President Xi has been following. China 2049 in an overarching plan, set out by the President in October 2017, when he used a speech to describe a broad plan to achieve national rejuvenation by 2049. The date would mark the centenary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China by the CCP. It largely refers to the CCP’s plan to transform the Chinese army—the People’s Liberation Army—into a world-class military by 2049. A mid-term goal is to have completed the modernisation of the PLA by 2035.

According to an annual report from the Pentagon to the US Congress in November 2021:

“The PRC is increasingly clear in its ambitions and intentions. Beijing seeks to reshape the international order to better align with its authoritarian system and national interests, as a vital component of its strategy to achieve the ‘great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.’”

China seeks to achieve that by merging foreign policy, economic power, defence and military strategies, and its Government and political systems into one master plan. Everything is traduced to that. Everything China does has that long-term, great goal in mind.

China now has the world’s largest navy, with roughly 355 ships and submarines. The People’s Liberation Army has 975,000 active duty personnel in combat units, and has accelerated its training and fielding of equipment at a pace exceeding that of recent years. It is also expanding its nuclear weapon capabilities faster than previously predicted. The rapid acceleration of Beijing’s nuclear stockpile, which could top 1,000 deliverable warheads by 2030, is designed to match and even surpass the US global military might, according to the Pentagon. The US has 3,750 nuclear weapons in its stockpiles, and has no plans to increase that figure. The Chinese air force is the world’s third largest, with more than 2,800 aircraft in total, 2,250 of which consist of fighters, strategic bombers and attack aircraft. That expansion is part of the great Chinese plan to dominate the world economically and militarily, as well as in other areas that I will come to.

That is the context in which we have to judge the threat posed by the actions of President Xi and his Communist party cronies. We know how that has panned out in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong and elsewhere. Some of us have often been lone voices in the wilderness on the plight of the Tibetans. Since the early 1950s, and particularly since the invasion and takeover of Tibet in 1959, what has been playing out in Tibet—with the 1 million Tibetans who have lost their lives at the hands of the Chinese Communist party dictators—is a forerunner of what the CCP is capable of doing, and is doing, within the borders of China; and what it would like to do beyond the borders of what we recognise as China.

The hon. Member for Strangford fleshed out many of the horrors going on against the Uyghurs. It is estimated that several million Uyghurs are being held captive in concentration camps, where activities include mass surveillance, torture and repression of religion. They are interned for reasons that include communal religious activities, behaviour indicating “wrong thinking”—whatever that is—or for just no reason at all. The World Uyghur Congress observes that the camps operate as prisons, with no communication with family outside. The CCP regime is pursuing a campaign of forced sterilisation and forced abortion, along with the destruction of the Uyghur language. China is trying to erase the Uyghur people.

In 2021, Uyghur regions set an unprecedented near zero population growth, given the effects of sterilisation. According to Dr Joanne Smith Finley, a reader in Chinese studies at Newcastle University and a fellow sanctionee, when she interviewed a Uyghur man from Ürümqi, he said that some people were given medicine in those camps to change their thinking, only to become mentally ill. The CCP is aiming to wipe out three specific categories: intellectual Uyghurs, rich Uyghurs and religious Uyghurs.

A sub-committee in the Canadian Parliament has concluded that the acts carried out by China on the Uyghurs amount to genocide by the general accepted definition. That was the conclusion of the Uyghur tribunals, so well presided over by Sir Geoffrey Nice at the end of last year. That was the conclusion of a unanimous vote in Parliament at a debate we held last year on the subject. It is about time the British Government acknowledged that the Chinese are guilty of genocide and continue to wage that ghastly oppression against the Uyghur people. Many other Parliaments have acknowledged it. We must catch up.

This is not just about the Uyghurs within the borders of China. Uyghurs abroad have also been intimidated and spied on through apps such as WeChat by the Communist party, according to the Uyghur Human Rights Project. The late former Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks said,

“As a Jew, knowing our history, the sight of people being shaven headed, lined up, boarded onto trains, and sent to concentration camps is particularly harrowing.”

We all saw those grim images and have heard so much that the Communist party has developed multiple levels of surveillance in the forms of Skynet and the “Safe City” and “Sharp Eyes” projects to keep track of every movement of its citizens. Of course, it is also spying on us through devices made in China and deployed across the west, including in the United Kingdom. Virtually weekly, we find a new case of the Chinese being able to survey what is going on in sensitive institutions in the UK.

Xi Jinping’s Tibet policy has been the systematic eradication of any and all distinctive features of Tibetan identity, carried out unchecked despite blatant human rights abuses. It includes plans to control the next incarnation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the uprooting of Tibetan children as young as four from their families into colonial boarding schools, the resettlement of Tibetan nomads and farmers in unfamiliar environments, including the harsh and uninhabitable frontier areas of Tibet along the Indian border, and Government-imposed restrictions on studying Tibetan language and religion.

Free Tibet and Tibet Watch have noted that the CCP has introduced massive changes in the past five years, from forcibly relocating Tibetans to clamping down on all aspects of religion, culture and language. Anyone caught in possession of a simple photograph of His Holiness the Dalai Lama is subject to a minimum five-year jail sentence without any questions being asked. Recently, the new crackdowns have led Tibet to be ranked 176th out of 180 countries by the Reporters Without Borders foundation in its press freedom index and to be ranked among the worst for civil and political rights in the “Freedom in the World” report by Freedom House. There are more foreign journalists in North Korea than in Tibet, such is the closed society. Our ambassador has not been able to travel to Tibet for several years now, nor have any of her staff. Most notably, torture and mistreatment have increased dramatically without impunity.

Chinese culture and the Mandarin language has been deemed the correct way forward after the 11 January 2020 passage by the 11th National People’s Congress of the “Regulations on the Establishment of a Model Area for Ethnic Unity and Progress in the Tibet Autonomous Region”. They are meant to safeguard the one-ness of the motherland, but contain punitive measures to punish those defecting from this one-ness.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

Does my hon. Friend recall that about a year and a half ago on the border of Tibet and India, Chinese troops aggressively tried to push the border back again, and a number of Indian soldiers were killed in that process? They have never once issued any kind of apology, and they continue to see the border as a moveable point to where they want it to be. There’s no diplomacy there.

[Tim Loughton]

That is the problem: the Chinese constantly test and push the parameters. They literally push the borders in that case to test the resolve of the west and those around them to stand up, take issue, object, call out and do something about their abuses of the international rule of law and the basic human rights that we all take for granted. That was one of many incidents. I am sure that many more have gone unreported.

The hon. Member for Strangford did a fine job of outlining Hong Kong as the latest hotspot for China’s oppression of all liberties. There are the ongoing 47 primary national security law cases. The trial of the 47 people charged with conspiracy to subvert state power in the Legislative Council, launched by Hong Kong’s pro-democracy campaign in 2020, officially began on Monday 6 February. The 47 people were charged with conspiracy to subvert state power and organising and planning acts to undermine the Government. That may well be what my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and I are guilty of under the terms of our sanctions, but we have never actually been fully told. None of the very nice people in the Chinese Communist party head office have written to tell us why we have been sanctioned and on what basis we might be unsanctioned.

All 47 defendants were denied bail and have been held in custody for more than 700 days. The prospect of a fair trial is, of course, derisory. In August 2022, the Department of Justice directed that the case would be heard without a jury and would instead be adjudicated by a bench of three national security judges, who were appointed by Hong Kong authorities.

[Margaret Ferrier]

The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has expressed concerns over Hong Kong’s national security law. It is particularly concerned about the “lack of transparency” around the detention and trials of arrestees and

“the lack of access to lawyers”

in these cases. Does the hon. Member share these concerns and agree that Ministers should seek further clarity about the reality on the ground?

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Hong Kong used to be a beacon of freedom, liberty, the rule of law, enterprise and entrepreneurialism in the far east. How quickly virtually all those characteristics have been snuffed out. There is not even a pretence that there is a fair trial any more. It is disgraceful that there were—and still are—some lawyers from the United Kingdom and other western countries sitting in the so-called courts in Hong Kong and overseeing the Mickey Mouse justice that the Chinese Communist party have imposed on previously free members of the community in Hong Kong.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I apologise for intervening on my hon. Friend again, but there is a further extension of that. I pointed out to the Government the other day—to no less a person than the Prime Minister—that, about a year and a half ago, the United States officially warned all their companies that they can no longer rely on the application of common law in Hong Kong as a protection of their business interests. The UK Government have yet to do anything of the sort. It is, of course, some Commonwealth and UK judges who still continue the farrago of saying that they somehow protect those interests.

[Tim Loughton]

My right hon. Friend is right again. Too often in this country, we seem to be playing catch up with some of the much more proactive and obvious measures taken by the US Administration, usually with unanimous support across all parties in Congress. Many of those laws are now having an impact on China and beginning to make it wake up to the fact that its actions have consequences. I fear that, too often, it is because people in this Chamber today and like-minded colleagues put pressure on the Government that, eventually, they might just catch up with some of the measures that should have been passed into our law at the same time as they were passed in the United States.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. I have to move the wind-ups at 2.28 pm, and I think Mr Carmichael wishes to speak. Is that correct?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

You might bear in mind your colleague.

[Tim Loughton]

I will approach my peroration forthwith on that basis. 

I will not mention Jimmy Lai because, again, the hon. Member for Strangford mentioned him. He also mentioned at length the Confucius Institutes, an example of how the tentacles of the Chinese Communist party extend everywhere—globally and within the UK in our boardrooms, businesses, schools, campuses, local authorities and in the bogus police stations, effectively, that China has set up. There was the disgraceful episode at the Manchester consulate, where the consul thought it was his job to beat up demonstrators. There was no pretence to try to get out of it. Is that not what he was there for? Is that not what the Chinese Communist party pays him to do? Never has a greater or more honest admission come from an official of the Chinese Government.

Internationally, what is China doing as part of the China 2049 plan? It controls something like 104 ports and has its teeth in infrastructure projects around the world. It effectively holds Governments to ransom, with huge loans imposed on them. We know what has happened with the port in Sri Lanka, the airport in Uganda and some of the schemes that have fallen to pieces. It places huge debts on many east African countries in particular, which is the real characteristic of the belt and road project. China has a stranglehold on rare earth mining, controlling 58% of critical minerals mining and 73% of the global production capacity for lithium, which goes into lithium-ion batteries and is crucial for anti-climate change measures relating to renewable and environmentally friendly sources of energy. I could go on—

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Don’t.

[Tim Loughton]

But I will not, as you just cautioned me.

Lastly, I welcome the Government’s announcement today on the use of TikTok on Ministers’ devices, in so far as it goes. I do not have you down as a TikTok devotee, Sir Edward—I may be doing you a disservice—but did you know that in China, western TikTok is banned and the addictive algorithms used over here are illegal? Last year, the internet watchdog made it mandatory for domestic companies to give users the choice to opt out of their data being used for personalised content in China. Over here, we know the situation: TikTok and its parent company ByteDance have close ties with the Chinese Communist party and are required to comply with the People’s Republic of China surveillance demand under the cyber-security law. Under standard contractual clauses, data can be transferred to ByteDance or other entities in the PRC from users in the UK and the rest of the west.

We should be nowhere near that system, frankly. The UK Information Commissioner’s Office should initiate an audit under section 146 of the Data Protection Act 2018 to investigate whether TikTok can protect the data being transferred under the legal regime in the PRC. If not, the ICO should consider intervening and prohibiting the data transfer as it cannot be respected in the PRC.

Whatever the Government want to call it and whatever phraseology they use, China is the greatest threat to the peace and security of the globe, and we need to plan accordingly. If people do not believe me, I urge them to read the words of the lifetime dictator who is in control of that country.