Council cuts ties over rights abuse
Bath and North East Somerset Council has voted to break off its agreement of friendship with the Chinese province of Jiangxi and city of Jingdezhen after a UN report highlighted human rights abuses against the Uyghur population in China.
At a Bath and North East Somerset Council meeting, Cllr Andy Furse said: “Over this time we have had the agreement, there has been political suppression and the breaking of international agreements in Hong Kong, expansionism in the South China Sea, serious military threats to democratic Taiwan, and now the United Nations report on human rights abuses on the Uyghur population.”
He added: “Remember that our agreement from us as a council is with the council in both the province and the city that I mentioned.
“And that means that it is with the senior people of that city, who are all members of the Chinese Communist Party and all answerable to the authoritarian regime that presides over them.”
The friendship agreement with Jiangxi has existed since 2009 but there has been no actual communication between the council and the Chinese province for the past six years.
The leader of the Labour group on the council, Robin Moss, said: “When we talk about friendship, let’s be clear this is not saying that it is about friendship with the people of China or visitors from China.
“In fact, I would hope we would be supportive of people who are fighting for their freedom in China, who want freedom of expression in China.
“What this is about is an increasingly centralised, oppressive, dictatorial regime in the People’s Republic of China and it is quite right that we should be making this move to cut those links with the official Communist Party.”
The motion to break off the friendship agreement with Jiangxi was passed without amendments almost unanimously.
The UN report found that serious human rights violations had been committed in the Xinjiang region, there was large-scale arbitrary detention of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities, and that allegations of torture and sexual violence were credible.
Bath and North East Somerset is not the only local authority to break off agreements with Chinese partners in response to this and other issues. Earlier this month, Newcastle voted to end its relationship with the Chinese city of Taiyuan, with which it had been twinned since 1985.