Xinjiang: Uyghurs

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

My hon. Friend puts it absolutely correctly. As I said earlier, our approach to China should be clear eyed and rooted in our values and our interests. China is a leading member of the international community and we have a strong and constructive relationship in many areas. It has to be part of the solution to many major global problems, whether that is global health, as we have seen in the past few months, or climate change. It has always been the case that where we have concerns, we raise them, and where the United Kingdom needs to intervene, we will.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab) [V]]

I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party group on the Uyghurs. This new evidence shows that the Chinese state regularly subjects Uyghur women—hundreds of thousands of women—to pregnancy checks, forced sterilisation and even abortion. Some 25 years ago, we watched as the genocide took place in Bosnia and in 2017 we saw that of the Rohingya in Myanmar, and now it is the Uyghurs in China. It is about time that our Government—our Prime Minister—went to the United Nations and asked for a resolution from the Assembly to establish an independent investigation into the situation in Xinjiang region.

[Nigel Adams]

I thank the hon. Lady, the chair of the APPG on this matter, but she will be aware—I have referred to it several times during my answers today—that we have been leading on this at the United Nations. There is an issue with these resolutions being blocked, as she will be aware, but I think the United Kingdom can in some ways proudly declare that we have been on the front foot in ensuring that these human rights violations receive international attention, and the joint statement with 22 other countries was testament to that.