MP: ‘We will not be intimidated by China’
A Conservative MP among those recently banned from entering China has said she and her colleagues are “not going to be intimidated” by the state.
Nusrat Ghani, who has been punished by the Chinese Communist Party for criticising its treatment of the Uighur people in Xinjiang, said the sanctions have only made the UK government “even more vocal” about the issue.
She added that the government must go “even further” in its action against China by sanctioning more officials involved in the human rights abuses.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has set out a package of travel bans and asset freezes against four senior officials and the state-run Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Public Security Bureau, in an internationally co-ordinated move with the US, Canada and European Union.
Beijing struck back with impositions against nine UK critics, including Tory MPS Ms Ghani, Tom Tugendhat and Neil O’brien, plus barrister Geoffrey Nice and academic Joanne Nicola Smith.
Asked if the government had been tough enough in its dealings with China, Ms Ghani told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “We must remember that these sanctions are in retaliation for the UK government sanctioning Chinese officials who have been implicated in the gross human rights abuses, so the UK government is definitely going in the right direction.
She added: “We are not going to be intimidated … Whatever the outcome the Chinese Communist Party thought they were going to achieve with sanctioning elected officials, that definitely hasn’t happened.”