UK MPs call for more sanctions as report reveals China’s ‘cultural erasure’ strategies in Tibet

Tibet was annexed by China in 1959

Credit: SANJAY BAID/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

British MPs are urging the UK to sanction additional Chinese officials for alleged human rights abuses in both Xinjiang and Tibet, after a new report has claimed a coercive labour program is erasing Tibetan culture and identity.

A cross-party group of 15 MPs is calling on the UK to sanction Chen Quanguo, the Communist Party secretary of Xinjiang who previously served in the same capacity in Tibet.

The group includes Tim Loughton, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Tibet; former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith; and Layla Moran, the Liberal Democrat Spokesman for Foreign Affairs.

The MPs have written a letter to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, claiming Mr Chen oversaw “the implementation of a heavy-handed repression and surveillance of Tibetan religious and cultural life."

A similar programme was later expanded under Mr Chen’s leadership in Xinjiang. His successor in Tibet, Wu Yingjie, “accelerated” a programme of “coercive assimilation” and “is responsible for an intensified crackdown on Tibetan religion,” and should also be sanctioned, according to the letter.

Implementing sanctions on both would “send a clear message that the abuses taking place in both the Tibetan and Uyghur regions are unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” the MPs added.

The letter cited a new report by the Tibet Advocacy Coalition, a group of organisations focused on Tibet, that described China’s policies in Tibet as a “cradle to grave” system.

That system is “imposed from an early age with Tibetan toddlers increasingly being subjected to ideological education in hundreds of new and expanded kindergartens” across the region. It also detailed coercive labour transfer schemes that have affected at least 2.8 million Tibetans over the last five years, according to China’s official statistics.

The report claims that Tibetan monks and nuns in ‘re-education’ facilities faced torture, sexual abuse and imprisonment, and that religious practitioners were forced to denounce Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and memorise propaganda, all of which served to increase Chinese government control and erase Tibetan culture and identity.

On Monday, the UK along with the US, Canada and the EU announced sanctions against Chinese officials believed responsible for human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region.

Beijing responded immediately with its own sanctions against the EU targeting individuals and entities.

China has rejected allegations of human rights violations, with government officials and state media saying that Xinjiang residents were happy and the region’s economy had improved, due to government policies.

“Governments around the world should implement targeted sanctions on the Chinese officials responsible for human rights abuses in Tibet,” said Mr Loughton in a statement. “Failure to act will only serve to embolden the Chinese government’s brutal persecution of not only Tibetans, but also Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities across China.”