MPs press for extradition treaty with Hong Kong to be suspended
DOMINIC RAAB will today set out the Government’s next steps on Hong Kong after 17 senior Tories, including three Yorkshire MPs, called for the suspension of the UK’s extradition treaty with the former British colony.
MPs in the China Research Group (CRG), including Thirsk and Malton’s Kevin Hollinrake, Haltemprice and Howden’s David Davis, and Wakefield’s Imran Ahmad Khan, wrote to Mr Raab over the weekend amid worsening relations with the Asian superpower.
Relations have broken down between Beijing and London and the UK decision to ban Chinese firm Huawei from the UK’s 5G network last week only worsened the situation.
Reports of China’s treatment of the Uighur minority, including reports of forced sterilisations and mass re-education camps, have also soured the relationship.
Urging Mr Raab to suspend
the treaty, the CRG said: “We are all going to have to ask ourselves if we recognise the Chinese Communist party’s definitions of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion, and share the interpretation of mainland judges.”
Mr Raab yesterday signalled he would oblige, as he criticised Beijing’s “egregious human rights abuses” against the Uighur.
He said he would update MPs today and while Britain wanted good relations with China, he said it could not stand by while abuses took place.
“This (is) from a leading member of the international community that wants to be taken seriously and in fact who we want a positive relationship with. But we cannot see behaviour like that and not call it out,” he said.
Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy called on the Government to use Britain’s new independent sanctions regime to target individuals implicated in human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
She said: “I think that the UK has a role to play in this.
“One very quick and simple thing that the UK government could and should be doing is to impose sanctions on Chinese officials who are involved in persecuting Uighur.
“And they could do that tomorrow.”