China: Human Rights and Sanctions

Commons Urgent Question

The following Answer to an Urgent Question was given in the House of Commons on Monday 28 October.

“I thank the right honourable gentleman for his Question. On China, this Government are clear that the UK’s national interests will always come first. Pragmatic engagement matters, not only to co-operate on shared challenges but to make progress in areas where we disagree. On my visit I made it clear that Chinese companies must stop supplying equipment to Russia that is being used in Ukraine. I also highlighted North Korean recklessness in stepping up its support for Putin—a threat to European security and stability in the Korean peninsula. I was robust on human rights, including in Xinjiang. I raised our serious concerns—which the right honourable gentleman has also raised on many occasions—about the implementation of the national security law in Hong Kong and called for the immediate release of British national Jimmy Lai. I called on Beijing to lift its unwarranted sanctions against parliamentarians, including the right honourable gentleman. This was a matter that I raised with you, Mr Speaker, before attending. I raised Taiwan, and warned that cyber- activity or interference in our democracy is unacceptable and will always be met by a strong response.

I also covered areas of mutual interest. China is the world’s biggest emitter, so we need to co-operate on the global green transition. It is also the world’s second-largest economy, and our trade with China is worth almost £100 billion. China has the second-largest number of AI unicorns of any country worldwide. Like the last Government, we will work with China to create rules to keep the public safe. This is grown-up diplomacy. After 14 years of inconsistency under the Conservatives, this Government will set a long-term, consistent and strategic approach to China. With Foreign Minister Wang Yi, I agreed to maintain channels of communication at ministerial level. This brings us up to speed with the United States, whose Secretary of State and Treasury Secretary have both made two visits in the past 18 months, as well as with partners including Australia, France and Germany. This Government are currently carrying out a China audit to improve our response to the challenges and opportunities that China presents to the UK. Once it is completed, I will gladly update the House again”.

15:20:00

My Lords, we are told that when the Foreign Secretary visited China, he raised British citizen Jimmy Lai’s sham detention, and we welcome that. Jimmy is 76 and is being held in solitary confinement, yet the Foreign Secretary has still not met Jimmy’s son, despite his coming to the UK on multiple occasions and asking for a meeting. Yesterday in the other place, the Foreign Secretary failed to answer whether or not he would meet Jimmy’s son, so let me give the Minister another opportunity. Will Ministers meet Jimmy Lai’s son—yes or no?

That is quite an easy one because my colleague, Minister Catherine West, has met Jimmy’s family on several occasions, both in opposition and since being appointed as a Minister. I also recall from reading the transcript of the Commons exchanges yesterday that the Foreign Secretary did indeed commit to meeting Sebastien Lai.

My Lords, the Foreign Secretary said yesterday in the House of Commons “this Government will set a long-term, consistent and strategic approach to China”. That would be welcome. He went on, however, to criticise the previous Government in 2015 for what they termed a “golden era” of their relationship with China. Have the Government committed in their strategic audit of their relations with China, which I support, to include all the preferential trading agreements the UK has offered China? This includes financial services, where Chinese state enterprises which have some element of involvement in human rights abuses may be involved in preferential market access to British financial services. Will that review be public?

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his support for the China audit. I think the most helpful thing I can say at this point is that the audit will be thorough and cross-government; the whole of Whitehall and all departments will be included in that audit.

I am astonished that the Foreign Secretary did not offer a Statement to the House of Commons but forced an Urgent Question, which has, of course, limited our opportunity to ask questions as well. Is it because he understands that there are some western democracies that, in the recent past, have got their people out of Chinese Communist Party prisons, yet his kowtowing visit means that he came back empty-handed as far as Jimmy Lai is concerned?

My Lords, I must disagree with my noble friend on his assertions and the tone in which he put his question. My right honourable friend David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, went to China because he wanted to raise these issues. Unless we engage with China, we do not get the opportunity to raise these issues. He raised the case of Jimmy Lai. He has called for Jimmy Lai to be released, as well he should. This is consistent with his position in opposition. He has gone further and made sure that every Minister in their engagement with China continues to raise on every occasion the case of Jimmy Lai. He should be released.

My Lords, the United Kingdom consistently led on the situation of the Uighurs in Xinjiang. Last year, at the UN Third Committee and subsequently at the Human Rights Council, 51 member states, led by the United Kingdom, signed a statement. I note with some degree of disappointment that there was a statement presented this year at the same forum, where only 16 countries, the United Kingdom included, came behind an Australian- led permanent representative statement. What action will the Government take to continue to ensure the UK’s leadership on this important issue?

We will continue to lead on this issue where we can in international fora. I am grateful for what the noble Lord said, and we share his concerns on this. But, to reiterate, the Foreign Secretary raised Xinjiang and the Uighur people in China last week, and he will continue to do so because our concerns have not changed since the change of Government. He will continue to raise those issues whenever and wherever he can.

I will ask the Minister about the situation for parliamentarians in this country who were sanctioned because of raising what was happening to the Uighur community in Xinjiang province. Two Members of this House—myself and the noble Lord, Lord Alton—and five Members of the House of Commons were sanctioned. I understand that that was not raised in the Foreign Secretary’s meeting with the leadership in China. Preserving our right to raise human rights issues, without feeling that there will be consequences for doing so, should concern this House.

I completely agree with my noble friend, as does the Foreign Secretary. These issues are raised. The sanctions against parliamentarians for things they have said are completely unwarranted and unacceptable. The Foreign Secretary met with Speaker Hoyle before his trip to China to reiterate that this was a concern to him. It is a concern to the Foreign Secretary and to all of us in the Government. It is inappropriate that parliamentarians in this and the other House should be sanctioned in this way, and we will consistently raise this with China.

My Lords, I am sure that it is right to raise where Chinese behaviour is deplorable and to challenge China robustly, but should we not seek to switch the emphasis to a less defensive and more positive side? We can outsmart the Chinese by showing that our kind of liberal capitalism, when we reform it—it needs reforming—is vastly superior to anything they can deliver, and that freedom under the law and free speech are of more benefit to nations than falling under the Chinese hegemon, as they will find in time. If the security and prosperity of the developing world are the prime requirement, the Commonwealth contains six of the fastest-growing economies in the world—a very much better bunch than the dodgy deals of BRI and other arrangements with the Chinese, where countries just find themselves loaded with more and more debt. Is there not a more positive side to take, as well as raising these issues that have very properly been raised?

On this Government’s approach, we want a consistent, strategic and pragmatic relationship because we think that is the best way to make progress on some of these issues that are of concern to all sides of the House. The way that we are describing this is that we will co-operate where we can, compete where we need to and challenge where we must.

My Lords, did the Foreign Secretary raise the appalling treatment of Tibetans, particularly the sacrilege by which some of their wonderfully famous and sacred sites are being destroyed? If this was raised, does the Minister know the answer?

I am frantically looking through the read-out of the exchange to see a reference to Tibet. I assure the noble Baroness that the Foreign Secretary raised a number of foreign policy and security matters, particularly issues around human rights. As she would expect, you do not get an instant result in these sorts of exchanges—diplomacy is about consistency and it takes time. But we are now in a period where we want a consistent, stable and pragmatic relationship. For 14 years, the relationship has blown hot and cold, and we have not had that stability and consistency. So that is the approach we will see from this Government.

My Lords, the Chinese state is not the first autocracy in the world and it may not be the most repressive, but it is by far the most technologically advanced. The ways in which the People’s Republic uses face recognition technology, surveillance technology and apps that monitor your phone is without precedent, as is the way it uses notionally private companies, such as Tencent, Weibo and Alibaba. Has the Minister’s department made any assessment of whether this kind of surveillance state could be exported; in other words, whether China’s allies and client states might be offered the package of a panopticon state to use on their own citizens?

My Lords, we are concerned about surveillance and threats to, for instance, BNO passport holders or others here in the UK, and we monitor that extremely closely. We take our responsibilities towards human rights, compromises of freedom of religious belief and other issues of privacy very seriously.

My Lords, what assessment have the Government made of China’s intentions to act aggressively in a military sense in the western Pacific? Do they agree that it is highly likely to come very shortly? What are we doing about it?

My Lords, we take the issues of freedom of navigation on the high seas extremely seriously. These were raised with China by the Foreign Secretary, and we made our position on these issues very clear.