Uyghur vote increases pressure

International alarm over China’s treatment of its Uyghur minority is coalescing around the 2022 Winter Olympics, after Canada’s parliament voted for Beijing to be stripped of the games.

The motion, which throws down the gauntlet to the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, follows mounting calls for a boycott among Canada’s Western allies. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday refused to rule out a boycott but said such a decision would be taken with ‘‘fellow democracies’’.

Canada’s Olympic proposal passed as part of a historic motion in which its parliament overwhelmingly declared that China was committing genocide against its Uyghur minority. Trudeau has previously baulked at the term, calling it ‘‘extremely loaded’’.

China is accused of waging a campaign of mass internment, slave labour and forced sterilisation against the Muslim Uyghurs, using a system of ‘‘reeducation campaigns’’ teaching assimilation into the dominant Han culture.

The Trump administration formally labelled China’s actions as genocide before leaving office last month, a stance immediately adopted by new US President Joe Biden. Recognition of genocide compels a government to act to stop it under international law.

At a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council this week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi denounced the charge of genocide as ‘‘slander’’ and ‘‘fiction’’. He said China was conducting a counterterrorism campaign in the western province of Xinjiang that had brought ‘‘social stability and sound development’’ after four years without any ‘‘terrorist case’’.

The US decision to call China out for genocide has put pressure on others to follow suit. The G7 countries will be joined by Australia, South Korea and India at a summit in Cornwall, England in June that is expected to involve the launch of the ‘‘D10’’ group of democracies as a bulwark against China

AP Canada’s parliament has followed the United States in declaring that China is committing genocide against its Uyghur minority, and says Beijing should be stripped of next year’s Winter Olympics.