UK braced for Chinese retaliation over Uighur abuse sanctions
The UK government is bracing itself for retaliatory action by China over its decision to impose sanctions on four Chinese officials in response to human rights abuses of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province.
The British ambassador to China, Caroline Wilson, was summoned by the Chinese foreign ministry to hear “solemn representations” about the UK sanctions imposed for the mass detention of Muslim minorities.
Chinese deputy foreign minister, Qin Gang, said after the meeting that China would take appropriate steps in response, but did not give further details.
The UK is expecting the retaliatory sanctions imposed on it by China to be less numerous than those placed on the EU. Any measures are not expected to extend to government officials, or ministers.
China acted immediately against the EU after its foreign affairs council on Monday imposed sanctions on the same four Chinese officials and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Public Security Bureau.
China had advance warning that the bloc was about to act, so may have prepared its countermeasures in advance.
By contrast, there had been no prior warning the UK was going to end its resistance to imposing sanctions over human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.
The EU ambassador to China was summoned on Monday. It is the first time the EU has imposed sanctions on China since 1984.
Britain will hope a spiral downwards in relations can be avoided since the UK government strongly feels the two sides need to cooperate on the climate crisis and trade. Ministers will be hoping the successful ploy they mounted to a cross-party move in parliament to making China answerable in the high court over alleged genocide in Xinjiang will show Downing Street is taking a balanced approach.
The UK has for months resisted imposing sanctions such as travel bans and asset freezes against Chinese officials, but in the end acted this week in close coordination with the EU, Canada and the US to ensure the same four Chinese officials were targeted.
The Biden administration, in contrast to Donald Trump, is making the rebuilding of neglected diplomatic alliances against China in both the west and the Indo-Pacific the central feature of its foreign policy.
China’s very carefully calibrated countermeasures to the EU covered five members of the European parliament, from four parties seen to be at the helm of the campaign about the human rights abuses in Xinjiang province.
At one level, the Chinese actions have played into US hands since it has made the likelihood of the European parliament ratifying the newly-agreed EU-China investment pact much less likely. The Biden administration had signalled before taking office that it wanted to be consulted by the EU ahead of the ratification of an agreement that liberalises EU access to the Chinese economy.
The perceived attack on the free speech of MEPs means it will be easier to gain political support inside Europe for a joint US-EU approach on China, something the US secretary of state wants to relaunch.
In its selected list of 10 sanctioned EU individuals and entities, China focused on Germany even though its leadership is probably the most well disposed to continued economic trade.
China placed sanctions on Green MEP and China expert Reinhard Bütikofer, the CDU MEP Michael Gahler as well as the Uighur researcher Adrian Zenz and the highly regarded Mercator Institute for China Studies (Merics). It is not yet clear if all staff of the thinktank are subject to sanctions, or simply the institution.
The other chief target was the European parliament’s human rights committee, but few could understand why China had selected Björn Jerdén, regarded as a dispassionate director of the Swedish National China Centre, a newly formed unit of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.
Bütikofer described China’s retaliatory sanctions as “a major strategic error”. He said it was unlikely that the ratification of EU-China investment treaty “will ever appear on the agenda of the European parliament, as long as the sanctions are still in force”.