Uyghur Tribunal: London

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if he will make a statement on the treatment by the Chinese Government of witnesses giving evidence to the Uyghur Tribunal in London.

We are disturbed by reports of attempts to intimidate those appearing at the recent hearing of the Uyghur Tribunal. We have previously made it clear that any attempt by China to silence its critics is unwarranted and unacceptable. The United Kingdom supports freedom of expression both as a human right in and of itself and as an essential element for the enjoyment of a full range of other rights. The freedom to speak out in opposition to human rights violations is fundamental.

The Government have repeatedly expressed our serious concerns about the human rights situation in Xinjiang, and the United Kingdom has led international efforts to hold China to account for its human rights violations in the region. Yesterday’s G7 leaders’ communiqué called on China to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, especially in relation to Xinjiang. In March, the Foreign Secretary announced sanctions against four Chinese officials and one entity responsible for those violations, alongside the European Union, the United States and Canada. In January, we launched a package of measures to help ensure UK businesses and the public sector are not complicit in human rights violations or abuses in Xinjiang. The Foreign Secretary has consistently raised the UK’s serious concerns directly with the Chinese Foreign Minister, State Councillor Wang Yi, most recently in a phone call on 27 May.

Rather than continuing to issue denials in the face of overwhelming evidence and seeking to silence their critics, we call on the Chinese Government to address the breadth of concerns being raised internationally about Xinjiang. As a matter of urgency, China must grant the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights or another independent fact-finding expert unfettered access to Xinjiang to verify the facts on the ground.

I reiterate that the Government welcome any rigorous and balanced initiative that raises awareness of the situation faced by Uyghurs and other minorities in China. I met Sir Geoffrey Nice in April to discuss the Uyghur tribunal, and we are following its work. My officials will study any resulting report very carefully indeed.

The Uyghur tribunal is an independent investigation of alleged genocide and crimes against humanity in the Uyghur region, led by Sir Geoffrey Nice. It started its hearings between 4 and 7 June in London and will reconvene later in the year. It was set up because the Chinese Government have reservations on the genocide convention and a veto at the UN Security Council, which prevents investigation by the International Court of Justice, and China is not party to the International Criminal Court.

It is a disgrace that, on Wednesday 9 June, the Government of the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region held a press conference featuring relatives of Uyghur exiles abroad, who were coerced to give statements that claimed to falsify the testimony of those who had given evidence to the Uyghur tribunal. We know already that the Chinese Government monitor, intimidate and harass Uyghurs living abroad, including UK citizens. We have also seen attempts to intimidate Members of this House. An Amnesty International report collated evidence from more than 400 Uyghurs in 22 countries, including the UK, who live in daily fear of the Chinese authorities. The harassment included aggressive messages and threats.

The first question is whether the Government will give evidence to the tribunal. If not, perhaps the Minister could explain why.

Rodney Dixon, QC, has alleged that Uyghurs are deported from third countries to China, where they go on to face genocidal atrocities. What assessment have the Government made of the credibility of the harrowing evidence provided by the Uyghur tribunal, and how will they act on its findings?

Do the Government support the involvement in the UK economy of firms that are complicit in the surveillance and monitoring of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, including surveillance firms such as Hikvision and telecommunications firms such as Huawei? Why have the Government rejected the recommendation of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee to require companies operating in Beijing to provide convincing evidence that their supply chains are not tainted by forced labour? Where are the provisions in the Modern Slavery Act 2015 to give force to those concerns?

I thank my right hon. Friend yet again for his work in this area and for bringing this important issue to the House’s attention. As I said in my opening remarks, we welcome any rigorous and balanced initiative that raises awareness of the situation faced by Uyghurs and other minorities in China. We will follow the tribunal closely and study any resulting report carefully.

Of course, my right hon. Friend knows that it is the policy of successive UK Governments that any determination of genocide or crimes against humanity is a matter for a competent court. We are therefore not in a position to provide evidence, testimony or other official support to the tribunal.

My right hon. Friend is right to mention the press conference held by Chinese authorities. We are disturbed by reports of attempts to intimidate those appearing at the hearing. We have previously made it clear that any attempt by China to silence its critics is unwarranted and completely unacceptable. As I have said, we have engaged with Sir Geoffrey Nice. We have pointed him to some open-source information to be of assistance, which is some of the most compelling evidence on what is going on in Xinjiang.

With regard to the Select Committee report that my right hon. Friend referenced, we announced on 12 January that we will work with the Cabinet Office to provide guidance and support to UK public bodies to exclude suppliers where there is evidence of human rights abuses in any of their supply chains. That work is continuing. As he will appreciate, that is a BEIS-led approach.

All our policy towards China is agreed by the National Security Council, and detailed implementation is co-ordinated by the National Strategy Implementation Group for China. These are senior officials across Whitehall. These governance structures are kept under review to ensure that effective co-ordination at all levels is always upheld.

I have lost count of the number of times that I have stood at this Dispatch Box and urged the Government to take stronger and more robust action against the atrocities of the Chinese state as it relentlessly persecutes the Uyghur people. I have also lost count of the number of times that the Government’s response has been woefully inadequate. From the blocking of the genocide amendment, to the failure to sanction Chen Quanguo, to last week’s rejection of many of the recommendations in the BEIS Select Committee’s report on forced labour, the reality is that the Government’s response to the genocide that is taking place in Xinjiang has fallen miserably short of befitting any credible definition of global Britain, so far amounting only to sanctions on a few lower-level Chinese officials.

Five days ago in Xinjiang, we had the chilling spectacle of relatives and friends of witnesses who have so bravely testified to the Uyghur tribunal being paraded in front of Chinese TV cameras, clearly under duress, and made to discredit the evidence that their family members had presented. Having attended the tribunal myself, I can tell the House that the evidence is truly harrowing. I therefore ask the Minister: what assessment have the Government made of the credibility of the evidence presented to the tribunal? Will the Government be testifying at the tribunal and will the Minister himself be attending the tribunal? When will we see the changes to the Modern Slavery Act promised by the Foreign Secretary in his statement to the House on 12 January? How is, in the Foreign Secretary’s word, the “urgent” export control review progressing, which also began on 12 January? Do the Government support the opening of an ICC investigation into the international crimes of the Chinese officials who are orchestrating these abuses? Why are the Government not doing more in the UN to get independent human rights observers into Xinjiang? What steps are the Government taking to protect Uyghurs living in the UK from harassment and intimidation by the Chinese authorities?

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that I disagree on a large part of his thesis that this Government have taken no action. This Government led the first two statements on Xinjiang at the UN. We have used our diplomatic network to raise the issue up the international agenda. We will continue to work with our partners across the world to build an international caucus of those willing to speak out against these human rights violations, and we have seen that caucus raised from 23 countries to 39. We will increase the pressure on China to change its behaviour.

We have backed up our international action with robust domestic measures: on 22 March, under the UK’s global human rights sanctions regime, we imposed asset freezes and travel bans on four senior Chinese Government officials and an asset freeze on one entity. On 12 January, the Foreign Secretary announced measures to help to ensure that businesses are not complicit in violations or abuses in Xinjiang. Of course, we are continuously keeping our sanctions regime under review.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the intimidation of the Uyghur diaspora. We are absolutely aware of this. We are very concerned about members of the Uyghur diaspora, including in the UK, being harassed by the Chinese authorities. This is an effort to intimidate them into silence, force them to return to China or co-opt them into providing information on other Uyghurs. This activity is unacceptable. We have raised our concerns directly with the Chinese embassy in London.

In my answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), I mentioned that we are not in a position to provide evidence, testimony or official support to the tribunal, but we have engaged: I have engaged personally with Sir Geoffrey Nice on this measure, and I understand that my noble Friend the Minister for human rights in the other place has spoken with him on no fewer than four occasions. We are following the tribunal’s work closely, and clearly we will be studying any resulting report.

Let us go to the Chair of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs.

I very much welcome the urgent question; my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) is absolutely right to ask it and to focus on the Uyghur community who have been so brutally injured, tortured and, indeed, sterilised by the Chinese state.

What has my hon. Friend the Minister done to work with partners around the world, from China to Canada, the United States and indeed New Zealand, to stand together against the united front that is not just torturing and seeking to exploit the weakness of the Uyghur peoples as they seek refuge and peace, but actually seeking to undermine the freedom of the British people and other people around the world by trying to shape our universities, silence our free speech and intimidate our citizens? Is he standing up for Britain?

I thank my hon. Friend the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. The short answer is yes, we are standing up for Britain. He is right to raise the question whether we are working with international partners on the issue. It is absolutely correct to do so; it sends the clearest possible signal of the international community’s serious concern and our collective willingness to act.

Our announcement on 22 March of sanctions against the perpetrators of gross human rights violations against Uyghurs and other minorities was made alongside the United States, Canada and the European Union. I can give the Chairman of the Select Committee some other examples in which we have worked together with partners and it has delivered: the Hong Kong visa offer, work with Canada, Australia and the EU on scholarships, export controls and extradition suspension in Hong Kong, parallel sanctions announcements on Xinjiang, and forced labour measures with Canada. We will continue to work with our international partners. He will have noticed the communiqué yesterday from the G7; we are very pleased to be able to lead that charge.

We now come to the SNP spokesperson.

I, too, commend the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for securing this important question. The Uyghur tribunal is an important event and a moment of clarity for a lot of us. I express our solidarity with the brave organisers of the event and with the witnesses and their relatives.

I have a couple of concrete questions for the Minister. If we all agree that the tribunal deserves our support, will he detail what practical measures the Government are bringing forward to support the people giving evidence and their relatives? Will he at least commit to a future statement in the House and a debate on the tribunal’s recommendations when they come forward, so that we can all consider its very serious testimony properly?

We absolutely welcome any initiative that is balanced, rigorous and raises awareness of the situation that Uyghurs and other minorities in China face. Sir Geoffrey Nice and those involved in the tribunal are distinguished figures. We will continue to engage with Sir Geoffrey and with those involved in the tribunal. We are more than happy to follow up on his work and we will study incredibly carefully the reports and any conclusions that the tribunal brings forward. As I said in my answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green, we pointed Sir Geoffrey, prior to the tribunal starting, to some compelling evidence via open source information as to what is going on in Xinjiang.

I suspect that the Chinese Government do not care a damn what we say in this Chamber, but they do care about what British business is doing and if it withdraws business as a result of human rights violations. There are plenty of other friendly countries such as India that can do anything China can do, so what has the Minister done to summon in businesses, name and shame them and say that they should move their imports and exports from China? These people are no better than Bristol slave traders of the 18th century, building their businesses on the backs of misery.

We are providing businesses with the guidance that they need to understand the moral, reputational, legal and economic risks of conducting business in Xinjiang. It is for businesses to reassure themselves and their customers that their activities in no way contribute to human rights violations taking place in Xinjiang. We also know that many businesses take the egregious violations of human rights in Xinjiang as seriously as we do. Many have already acknowledged the risks and have taken action. Our guidance is clear on the risks that they face when operating in Xinjiang, and we expect all businesses to take appropriate action in response.

Listening to these reports—the latest in a series of accounts of disappearances, deportations and detentions of Uyghurs outside China—it is clear that the Chinese communist party has no problem with coercion outside its borders. The eyes of the world will be on the Chinese Government at next year’s Beijing Winter Olympics. A diplomatic boycott by the UK would send a clear signal that this sort of transnational repression is totally unacceptable. Does the Minister agree that this boycott is necessary, as without taking meaningful action, we can expect only more of the same from the Chinese state?

No decisions have been made with regard to diplomatic attendance at the Winter Olympics.

I attended the tribunal and I saw images of mass crematoriums and a young mum who was incarcerated for a couple of years. Her triplets were returned with marks around their necks, and one was returned as a frozen corpse. For her bravery to give evidence to the inquiry, she had her family paraded on TV by the Chinese authorities. The right thing for the Minister to do would be to support the tribunal publicly. Otherwise, as the United Nations, we end up as a broken flush when it comes to holding China to account.

I thank my hon. Friend, again, for her dogged determination on this subject and many others surrounding human rights. I have said before during this session and during the four or five previous urgent questions on this issue that we will continue to hold China to account on its human rights abuses. With regard to the tribunal, we welcome any initiative that is thorough and balanced, and that raises awareness and provides us with detailed information of the situation that is faced by Uyghurs and other minorities in China.