Beijing Winter Olympics and Chinese Government Sanctions

Debate between Tim Loughton and Graham Stringer

Thursday 15th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

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

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

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

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

Yuck.

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

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

Finally, it states:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Tim Loughton]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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