A riot policeman detains a protester after a Chinese flag was removed from a flag pole at a rally in support of Xinjiang Uighurs' human rights
Credit: LUCY NICHOLSON /Reuters
The UK is in dire need of a coherent China policy, according to a new report, which says its strategy has been “superficial.”
Britain’s China “policy was never sufficient. It was superficial and unlikely to be sustainable,” writes Alexander Downer, chairman of UK think tank Policy Exchange and former foreign affairs minister in Australia, in the foreword of the report by China Research Group.
“A policy towards a rising China which offered nothing more than pecuniary ambition was never going to impress British allies,” Mr Downer writes. “Worse, it indicated that the UK was no longer a global geopolitical player, just a trading nation.”
The report urges the UK government to adopt Magnitsky-style sanctions against those responsible for human rights abuses, including following in the mould of the US by enacting a UK Hong Kong Autonomy Act.
To start, the UK should remember its “strength in the world is its network of friends and allies” and engage the world’s leading democracies to form an alliance to counter growing Chinese influence.
“Like-minded democracies need to rethink their approach to China,” said Tom Tugendhat MP, and chair of China Research Group, set up by a coalition of Conservative MPs in April.
Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat has called for the UK to build an international coalition to counter China
Credit: TOLGA AKMEN /AFP
“We should seek to hold China to its international obligations – and that includes preparing a package of measures which could be enacted in response to continued CCP violations of human rights and international law.”
Magnitsky-style sanctions would follow in the footsteps of the 2012 Magnitsky Act, passed by the US Congress, which was designed to sanction Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky while imprisoned in Moscow.
The bill allows the American government to sanction those it deems human rights offenders, freeze their assets, and ban them from entering the US.
The UK should also consider policies to support those in Hong Kong, especially British National Overseas people, to emigrate or defend their rights by setting up an international legal aid fund those in need can tap into. Another suggestion is to facilitate a process for people and businesses to move assets and business activity to the UK and away from mainland China.
The report calls for the ban of UK exports to China of any goods and services that could be used in mass surveillance or human rights violations.
It also suggests ways to ensure supply chains are free of forced labour by proposing an independent investigations unit in Government that could conduct inquiries, especially for companies that don’t always have the means to do so.
China's restrictions on foreign journalists
Other proposals include having the Department of International Trade company executives personally liable if their firms are found to be linked to forced labour; and the creation of a logo so consumers know which products are ethically sourced and produced.
CRG also stresses the need for greater oversight over UK purchases of Chinese hardware and apps "to reduce the [Chinese Communist Party’s] ability to infiltrate UK agencies.”
Given concerns over undue foreign influence, espionage and trade secret theft, further guidance should be issued regarding cooperation between British universities and foreign governments, and Chinese firms doing business with British companies ought to be required to disclose information about any links to the Chinese government and military.
The CRG report comes as political winds shift in the UK with some MPs and even government officials becoming increasingly hawkish on China. MI-5 chief Ken McCallum and Iain Duncan Smith, former Conservative leader, have called China a major threat.
The UK Government has also become more vocal on Hong Kong, declaring China in breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration for a third time after Beijing moved to unseat pro-democracy opposition legislators from the city’s mini-parliament.
And just last week, Mr Tugendhat, as chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab urging the Government to start a formal process to determine whether Chinese policies in Xinjiang region, home to the Uighur ethnic Muslim minority, constituted genocide.
But rocky relations with Beijing would isolate the UK and leave it vulnerable to punitive retaliatory action as Australia has witnessed in recent months. China has slapped massive tariffs on major Australian exports, detained Australians in China, and engaged in a massive disinformation campaign in what experts read as an way to warn other Western nations to rethink going up against Beijing.
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