China sanctions UK parties over Xinjiang accusations

BEIJING/LONDON • China yesterday announced retaliatory sanctions on British politicians, including the former leader of the ruling Conservative Party, for "maliciously spreading lies and disinformation" about its Xinjiang region.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it is targeting nine individuals and four entities in Britain. The individuals are former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, the party's policy adviser Neil O'Brien, chairman of Parliament's foreign affairs committee Tom Tugendhat, Mr David Alton, Mr Tim Loughton, Ms Nusrat Ghani, Ms Helena Kennedy, Mr Geoffrey Nice and Ms Joanne Nicola Smith Finley. They and their relatives are banned from entering China or trading with Chinese citizens and institutions. Any assets they have in the Asian nation will also be frozen, the ministry said.

The four entities are the China Research Group of UK lawmakers, the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, the Uighur Tribunal, and Essex Court Chambers.

Hitting back, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: "It speaks volumes that, while the UK joins the international community in sanctioning those responsible for human rights abuses, the Chinese government sanctions its critics. If Beijing wants to credibly rebut claims of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, it should allow the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights full access to verify the truth."

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote on Twitter that he stood with the lawmakers and citizens sanctioned by China over speaking out about what he said were "gross human rights violations" against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said sanctions that London had earlier levied on China over allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang were "based on nothing but lies and disinformation" and that they "grossly interfered in China's internal affairs".

The message being sent to the UK and Europe is that by "siding with the US, they will not do themselves any good", said Professor Wang Yiwei, director of the Centre for European Studies at Renmin University in Beijing. China's aim is to eliminate the influence of these individuals, which removes them as stumbling blocks to future cooperation, he said.

Mr Smith, one of those on the sanction list, vowed to wear the sanction as a "badge of honour", posting on Twitter that it was the duty of lawmakers to call out the Chinese government's "human rights abuse" and "genocide".

Ms Ghani, also posting on Twitter, said that she would not be "intimidated or silenced".

Earlier this week, the UK joined the United States, Canada and the European Union in imposing sanctions against China over alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Western governments accuse China of interning up to one million Muslim Uighurs in camps and compelling them to work, while also forcing children across the region into boarding schools.

The US as well as lawmakers in Canada and the Netherlands have labelled Beijing's actions in the region as genocide.

Beijing dismisses the allegations, saying it is building infrastructure to boost the economy, providing jobs and educating children. Its actions in the region are necessary to counter extremism, China added.

China "reserves the rights to take further actions", Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying said at a regular media briefing in Beijing yesterday. "The US, the UK, Canada and European Union provoked this in the first place," she said. "What China did was just and legitimate self-defence."

BLOOMBERG, REUTERS