China has announced retaliatory sanctions against high-level British politicians, including the former ruling Conservative party leader for “maliciously spreading lies and misinformation” about its Xinjiang region.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Friday in a statement addressed to nine people and four entities in the United Kingdom
The nine individuals sanctioned are former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, party policy adviser Neil O’Brien, Parliament’s foreign affairs committee chairman Tom Tugendhat, David Alton, Tim Loughton, Nusrat Ghani, Helena Kennedy, Geoffrey Nice and Joanne Nicola Smith Finley.
People and their relatives are prohibited from entering China or trading with Chinese citizens and institutions. Any assets they have in the Asian nation will also be frozen statement. The four entities affected are the China Research Group of British lawmakers, the Conservative Party’s Human Rights Commission, the Uyghur Court and the Essex Court Chambers.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab responded in a statement. “It says a lot that while the UK joins the international community in sanctioning those responsible for human rights abuses, the Chinese government is sanctioning its critics.
“If Beijing wants to credibly refute allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, it should allow the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights full access to verify the truth.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the sanctions London had previously imposed on China for allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang “were based on nothing but lies and misinformation” and “seriously interfered with the China ‘s internal affairs “.
The message being sent to the United Kingdom and Europe is that, “supporting the United States will be of no use to them,” said Wang Yiwei, director of the Center for European Studies at Beijing’s Renmin University. China’s goal is to eliminate the influence of these people, which removes them as stumbling blocks for future cooperation, he said.
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Duncan Smith pledged to carry the sanction as a “badge of honor,” posting on Twitter that it was the duty of lawmakers to demand “abuse of human rights” and “genocide” by the Chinese government.
Ghani said on Twitter that she would not be “intimidated or silenced.” She told BBC radio: “This is a wake-up call for all democratic countries and legislators that we will not be able to conduct our business without China sanctioning us just for trying to expose what is happening. in Xinjiang and Uyghur Abuse. “
Earlier this week, the United Kingdom joined the United States, Canada and the European Union in imposing sanctions on China for alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Western governments accuse China of internment Until One million Muslim Uighurs in the camps and forcing them to work, while forcing children from all over the region to boarding schools.
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The United States and lawmakers in Canada and the Netherlands have described Beijing’s actions in the Central Asian border region as genocide.
China dismisses the allegations, saying it is building infrastructure to boost the economy, providing jobs and educating children.
Beijing “reserves the right to take additional action,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular briefing on Friday in Beijing.
“The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and the European Union caused this in the first place,” he said. “What China did was a fair and legitimate self-defense.”
Multinationals are becoming caught up in the controversy, with Chinese social media users calling for boycotts Hennes & Mauritz AB i Nike Inc. for not using cotton grown in Xinjiang.
– With the assistance of John Liu, Jing Li, Stanley James and Emily Ashton
(Updates with comments from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.)